RESEARCH REPORT Implementation of Accelerating …...Implementation of Accelerating Opportunity ......

RE S E AR C H RE P O R T

Implementation of Accelerating

Opportunity Final Implementation Findings with Lessons for the Field

Theresa Anderson Lauren Eyster Robert I. Lerman THE URBAN INSTITUTE THE URBAN INSTITUTE THE URBAN INSTITUTE

Maureen Conway Ranita Jain Marcela Montes

THE ASPEN INSTITUTE THE ASPEN INSTITUTE THE ASPEN INSTITUTE

May 2016

E D U C A T I O N A N D T R A I N I N G

AB O U T T H E U R BA N I N S T I T U TE The nonprofit Urban Institute is dedicated to elevating the debate on social and economic policy. For nearly five

decades, Urban scholars have conducted research and offered evidence-based solutions that improve lives and

strengthen communities across a rapidly urbanizing world. Their objective research helps expand opportunities for

all, reduce hardship among the most vulnerable, and strengthen the effectiveness of the public sector.

AB O U T T H E AS P E N IN S T IT U TE

The Aspen Institute is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, DC. Its mission is to

foster leadership based on enduring values and to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues.

Copyright © May 2016. Urban Institute. Permission is granted for reproduction of this file, with attribution to the

Urban Institute. Cover image from Shutterstock.

Contents Acknowledgments iv

Executive Summary v

Accelerating Opportunity over Three Years vi

Implementing the AO Model: Lessons for the Field viii

States and Colleges Plan to Sustain Aspects of AO, but There Is More to Learn xii

Introduction to Accelerating Opportunity 1

The Need for a Better Approach to Help Low-Skilled Adults 2

The Accelerating Opportunity Theory of Change and the Model as Designed 4

Recruitment of AO States 5

The Accelerating Opportunity Evaluation 6

Three Years of Accelerating Opportunity 9

College Participation 10

Pathways Offered 11

Students Served 13

Outcomes 15

Financing and College Resources Expended 17

AO Implementation Summary 21

State Support of AO Implementation 21

College Development and Implementation of Integrated Career Pathways 30

Culture Shift and Changes in Attitudes toward Adult Education Students 45

Conclusions: Considerations for Sustainability and Scale 47

State Policy Context Is Key in Setting Direction and Supporting Systemic Changes 48

State-Level Partnerships Are Important for Resource Alignment and Sustainability 49

Strategic Alignment between Adult Education and CTE Programs Is Central to Implementing

Integrated Career Pathways 49

The AO Model Is Resource-Intensive but Is Seen as a Worthwhile Investment 50

Evaluation Products 51

Appendix A. Required Elements of AO and Theory of Change 52

Nonnegotiable Elements of the AO Grant 52

Appendix B. Characteristics of AO Enrollees 56

Appendix C. Achievements 62

Appendix D. Resources 63

Notes 66

References 69

About the Authors 70

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S I V

Acknowledgments The evaluation team would like to thank the funders and management of the Accelerating Opportunity

initiative for supporting a rigorous and comprehensive evaluation. The Accelerating Opportunity grants

are sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the W. K. Kellogg

Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the Arthur Blank Foundation, the

Woodruff Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the University of Phoenix Foundation. The

Accelerating Opportunity grants are administered by Jobs for the Future in partnership with the

National College Transition Network, the National Council for Workforce Education, and the State

Board for Community and Technical Colleges in Washington State. We especially thank Lisa Soricone

and Randall Wilson for their guidance and support throughout this process. We are grateful to them and

to all our funders, who make it possible for Urban to advance its mission.

We also thank the leadership teams in Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, and Louisiana and all of the

participating colleges for giving their time and energy to host site visits, complete surveys, provide

student data, and answer myriad questions about all aspects of Accelerating Opportunity. They have

made this evaluation possible.

The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute,

its trustees, or its funders. Funders do not determine research findings or the insights and

recommendations of Urban's experts. Further information on the Urban Institute’s funding principles is

available at www.urban.org/support.

http://www.urban.org/support

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y V

Executive Summary This final implementation report shares findings from the first three years of Accelerating

Opportunity (AO), an initiative launched in 2011 that aimed to help adults with low basic

skills earn valued occupational credentials, obtain well-paying jobs, and sustain rewarding

careers. The report documents the accomplishments of AO over this period and provides an

in-depth description of the process and lessons that emerged from the effort. These findings

may be of particular interest to state policymakers and colleges planning for the

implementation of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), which provides

new opportunities for career pathway development within states and colleges.

The AO model focused on students who scored between the 6th- and 12th-grade level in basic skill

areas but who expressed interest in earning technical credentials. In particular, AO was designed for adult

education students who lacked high school diplomas or the equivalent. AO encouraged states to change the

delivery of adult education for these students by allowing community and technical colleges to enroll them

in for-credit career and technical education (CTE) courses at the same time as they earned their high school

credentials, improved their basic academic skills, or built their English language abilities. Colleges structured

the CTE programs in which students enrolled as credit-bearing, integrated college and career pathways with

enhanced support services. Each pathway was required to incorporate integrated instruction, which

combined basic skills and technical training that was contextualized for the occupation targeted.

Specifically, AO required colleges to implement “team teaching,” where an adult education instructor co-

teaches with a CTE instructor in the same classroom. This approach intended not only to make CTE courses

accessible for students with low basic skills but also to enhance the quality of instruction. AO was also

designed to change how states and colleges coordinated with government, business, and community

partners by reforming policy and practice to make it easier for students with low basic skills to access and

succeed in postsecondary education and the workforce.

A consortium of foundations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the

W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, the University of Phoenix Foundation, and the Open

Society Foundations, provided funding for AO. Jobs for the Future (JFF) managed and provided technical

assistance for the initiative in partnership with the National College Transition Network, the National

Council for Workforce Education, and the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges.

This final implementation report describes the first three years of AO implementation in four states that

were part of the evaluation for all three years of the initial implementation period (three additional affiliate

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y V I

states implemented AO but were not included in the evaluation). It covers January 2012 through the end of

calendar year 2014 in Illinois, Kansas, and Kentucky and from fall 2012 through summer 2015 in Louisiana.

The data presented in this report come from a survey administered in each of the three years of all AO

colleges that were part of the evaluation, two rounds of site visits to the participating state offices and two

colleges per state (eight visits total), program documentation, and quarterly calls with AO states and

colleges over three years of implementation. This report also includes data from two web-based surveys of

current and former AO participants that focused on student experiences in the program (see Spaulding and

Martin-Caughey 2015).

This report is part of a comprehensive evaluation of the AO initiative that Urban Institute conducted

with its partners the Aspen Institute and the George Washington University. The evaluation includes an

implementation study, an impact study, and a cost-benefit analysis. The evaluation team will release

summative reports for the quasi-experimental impact study and cost-benefit analysis by early 2017.

Accelerating Opportunity over Three Years

During its first three years, the AO initiative grew as states and colleges increased their efforts to help low-

skilled adults obtain credits and credentials and attain employment. Based on annual data from a college

survey, these states expanded the AO model to all or a large proportion of colleges within their respective

states. Ultimately, 54 AO colleges in the four evaluation states enrolled 8,287 students over the first three

years of the AO effort.1 These colleges implemented 154 integrated career pathways. The most common

pathways were in manufacturing (39 percent of pathways offered) and health occupations (32 percent).

Major Accomplishments

The students enrolled in AO pathway programs earned 56,757 credits and 11,283 credentials, 78 percent of

the 14,400 credentials initially targeted for the three-year AO initiative (3,600 credentials per state),

according to annual college survey data. In addition to supporting acquisition of credits and credentials, the

AO initiative helped students connect to the labor market. According to the college surveys, over one-third

(35 percent) of AO students engaged in work-based learning, such as internships, during their enrollment in

AO coursework; 37 percent entered employment in any job; and 30 percent found a job related to the

occupational area of their pathway within the first three years. These figures do not indicate the impacts of

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y V I I

AO on student labor market and educational outcomes, which would require a comparison of outcomes to

similar non-AO students. Information on impacts will appear in a later report.

The evaluation team also found that AO students expressed great satisfaction with the AO initiative.

During focus groups and in response to student survey questions, students noted that college courses and

credentials might not have been a viable option for them had they not had access to AO. Students identified

specific components of the AO model—including individualized supports, team teaching, and tutoring

services—as critical for helping them succeed in postsecondary institutions and attain employment.

Financing and Resources Expended

States had flexibility about how they allocated the grant money across colleges, and they asked colleges

participating in AO to make major changes with relatively few resources. Colleges received funding from the

state AO grant ranging from $8,800 to $140,000 in the first year, with the average at about $52,000 per

college. The amounts were similar for the original colleges in subsequent years. States and colleges

complemented AO grant resources by combining AO funds with other institutional resources and grants,

such as Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grants and the

Health Profession Opportunity Grants.

On average, colleges used about $233,000 in resources for AO in the first year. By the third year, the

resources used for AO per college had decreased to about $227,000, even as the number of students served

and credits and credentials awarded increased. These estimated figures represent the value of the extra

resources used beyond what the colleges would have invested if AO did not exist. The majority of these

extra resources were dedicated for AO personnel, such as additional teachers for team-teaching instruction

or AO-specific coaches and navigators who provided support services. Some of these resources also

represent the value of the time spent by deans and other college leadership personnel to support the roll-

out of AO. Most colleges did not write a check for the entire amount of the resources used; colleges

redirected some portion of the resources captured in this analysis from other potential uses.

The data reported from the college and student surveys and site visits demonstrate that the AO

initiative had promising outcomes over the course of three years and that colleges achieved these outcomes

more efficiently over time. The next section describes some of the lessons learned over the course of the

three-year implementation period.

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y V I I I

Implementing the AO Model: Lessons for the Field

The implementation of the AO model required states and colleges to adapt existing structures and systems

to meet the initiative’s overall goal of increasing the ability of students with low basic skills to earn valued

occupational credentials and enter well-paying careers. These lessons from AO implementation may be

valuable to other state policymakers and colleges interested in pursuing similar efforts.

Strong State Executive-Level Leadership and Ongoing Support Bolster College Efforts

The implementation of AO represented a major shift in how state administrators, college staff, and faculty

perceived low-skilled adults in community and technical college systems. It challenged long-held

assumptions regarding how likely these students were to succeed in CTE programs. The leadership and

ongoing support of state executive agencies were critical for the design and implementation of the AO

model at the college level. Each of the four states had state-level AO teams to manage the initiative, led by

the state’s community and technical college board or system. State partnerships between higher education

executive leadership and adult education leadership, workforce agencies, and health and human services

departments were valuable in facilitating the policy changes and cooperation needed for AO

implementation. These state management teams coordinated the effort across colleges, helped college

leadership navigate policy barriers, and provided professional development and technical assistance to help

colleges deliver the AO model.

State Policy Can Support Student Success

AO state teams recognized that formal policies were critical for ensuring that adults with low basic skills and

adult education students could enroll in and complete postsecondary coursework successfully. Therefore,

state teams engaged multiple stakeholders to build policy support for AO. This policy work covered multiple

areas, including changing assessment practices for low-skilled students, aligning curricula to allow for

acceleration, developing new funding models to support integrated instruction strategies, and improving

capabilities for data collection and tracking student outcomes. Each state undertook unique strategies in

their efforts to realign resources and change or develop new policies or systems. In all states, this work was

invaluable in facilitating college-level efforts to enroll AO students in integrated career pathways. In all four

states, preexisting infrastructure promoted the AO initiative’s successful implementation because JFF only

awarded AO grants to states in which the postsecondary system governed adult education.

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y I X

One challenge that required a state response was the elimination of the Pell grant’s “Ability to Benefit”

provision in 2012, which meant that students without high school credentials could not qualify for federal

financial aid. This provision was reinstated in 2015, toward the end of the AO effort—too late for colleges to

use Pell grants to support tuition for AO students. Instead, some state teams strategized with AO colleges to

find tuition resources for students without high school credentials: three states (Illinois, Kansas, and

Louisiana) forged relationships with the state workforce system, one (Kansas) developed a formal

agreement with the state department of human services, and another (Louisiana) revised its tuition waiver

policy for students without high school credentials. Despite these efforts to support tuition for students

without high school credentials, most students whom the colleges recruited into AO had completed high

school or equivalent before enrollment. State and college administrators emphasized that students who

possessed high school credentials but still had basic skill needs could also benefit from the AO model.

Both College Institutional Factors and Labor-Market Demand Influence Pathway

Selection

The AO model emphasizes that pathways should be in high-demand or high-growth occupational areas,

based on local labor-market information. Although local labor-market demand played a role in college

decisions on pathway selection and implementation, most colleges initially prioritized institutional factors

over demand. Institutional factors included the college’s capacity to provide the pathway (e.g., equipment

and faculty availability), preexisting relationships between adult education and certain CTE programs,

prerequisites for the occupational field, and student interest in a particular occupation.

Colleges took unique approaches to integrated career pathway design and implementation; there was

no “one size fits all” solution. One common approach was for colleges to implement AO initially with CTE

departments that were more open to exploring integrated instruction methods. The approach of choosing

“friendly” CTE departments allowed colleges to start AO implementation quickly and build evidence of

success. The early evidence then helped colleges convince administrators and faculty in other occupational

areas to try AO. Over time, states required colleges to consider labor-market demand more explicitly in

developing new pathways, since this is a critical component of the career pathways model.

Team Teaching Is Considered Effective, but It Requires Higher Investments

Many college faculty and administrators were initially concerned about the team-teaching model prescribed

by AO, but many were convinced of its benefits by the end of the grant period. CTE faculty at first expressed

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y X

concerns about the specific role of an adult education instructor in the CTE classroom, but those who

engaged in team teaching became more positive about the approach over time. Some even discussed

wanting to incorporate an adult education instructor into non-AO classes. Students were also enthusiastic

about the model and expressed that they would like more exposure to team-taught classes. Often, the adult

education instructor contributed to instructional delivery; students shared that the adult education

instructor also served an important supportive staff member.

College leadership expressed initial uncertainty about the cost-effectiveness of the team teaching

approach. Some college leaders, many of whom were concerned about the higher costs of team teaching and

its ability to serve students with low basic skills, became convinced that team teaching was a worthwhile

investment moving forward because of its positive reception by faculty and students. Others planned to

integrate the benefits of team teaching while reducing costs by implementing team teaching for one or two

semesters, thereby giving CTE instructors a chance to learn how to incorporate basic skills content into

their courses, and then moving forward without the second instructor. Alternatively, some colleges began to

emphasize separate but contextualized basic skills instruction in lieu of team teaching.

College Internal Partnerships Are Fundamental but Time Intensive

Internal college partnerships among various departments—including adult education, CTE departments,

college admissions, financial aid, and student support services—proved critical for AO success. These

partnerships supported the co-enrollment of adult education students in college courses, increased the type

and amount of instructional resources available, and facilitated students’ transition to employment. College

staff noted that these productive partnerships took time to develop. One of the first stages in developing

these partnerships was to inform other staff and faculty at the college about the AO model and encourage

them to buy into the idea that students with low basic skills could succeed in CTE programs. This early

foundational work set the context for a positive culture shift toward higher confidence in the capabilities of

low-skilled students.

External Partners Provide Needed Support, but Deep Employer Engagement Is

Challenging

Throughout the implementation period, colleges leveraged external partnerships in various ways. Local

workforce systems helped with recruitment and sometimes provided tuition support for students who did

not qualify for Pell grants. Community-based organizations often provided individualized case management

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y X I

and access to resources, such as child care or transportation vouchers. In some cases, community-based

organizations also provided adult education services.

Colleges engaged employers as a part of AO, but creating and sustaining meaningful relationships with

employers was challenging in many cases. Of the colleges involved in AO for all three years, the number with

employer partners increased from 55 percent in the first year to 70 percent in the third year. Additionally,

82 percent of the original AO colleges indicated that they had an employer partner in at least one year.

However, colleges still have work to do in deepening those partnerships. For instance, only 32 percent of

colleges indicated that employers had assisted with pathway design. During site visits, college staff often

cited employer engagement as an area for improvement. Colleges with strong CTE engagement in the AO

effort were better positioned to leverage existing college relationships with employers through CTE

employer advisory boards and instructor connections to industry, but engaging employers in a systematic

way was often a new area for adult education departments working on AO.

Individualized Supports Are Helpful for Student Success, but Difficult to Sustain in the

Long Term

Comprehensive support services—academic, career, and personal—are integral to the AO model. Common

support services included tutoring or other academic support, career planning, college navigation support,

job search assistance and job placement, and case management. Staff and students expressed that the

individualized attention that AO staff gave to their students was the most important factor in student

success. AO students received this support from adult education instructors in the classroom or from

navigators who connected them to needed services inside or outside the college. Staff discussed how

individualized support is particularly important for low-skilled adult students, since many of these students

have a history of academic struggles and often juggle job and family responsibilities. According to student

survey results, over 90 percent of those who received individual support or advice from an AO navigator or

faculty member were satisfied or very satisfied with the support and advice they had received. College

leadership, however, worried about their ability to scale and sustain individualized support services, given

the costs, and have explored new funding sources that can be tapped for this purpose.

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y X I I

States and Colleges Plan to Sustain Aspects of AO, but

There Is More to Learn

Even with the substantial resource investments required for implementation and the challenges in

developing pathways, support structures, partnerships, and policies to support the model, many of the

states and colleges report that they found the investments worthwhile. Legislative bodies in Kansas and

Louisiana appropriated funds to support AO, partially based on early indicators of program success.

Kentucky and Louisiana scaled up AO or AO-like efforts to all community and technical colleges. Across all

four states, no colleges categorically rejected continuing aspects of AO, and 82 percent identified specific

aspects of the model they would carry on after the grant period. In a survey, students expressed that the

team-teaching approach—the aspect of the intervention that was arguably most costly—was the most

beneficial and that they wanted more of it.

The forthcoming impact report will draw upon administrative data systems to examine the impacts of

AO on student outcomes. Additionally, a forthcoming cost–benefit analysis will incorporate more complete

cost data and show benefits accrued to states, colleges, and students. In the meantime, it appears that many

AO leaders, staff, and students ended the grant period feeling that the intervention had positive effects on

low-skilled students and was worth the time and resource investment.

I N T R O D U C T I O N T O A C C E L E R A T I N G O P P O R T U N I T Y 1

Introduction to Accelerating

Opportunity The long-term goal of the Accelerating Opportunity (AO) initiative is to increase the ability

of students with low basic skills to earn valued occupational credentials, obtain well-paying

jobs, and sustain rewarding careers. Multiple foundations sponsored the AO grant initiative,

which began in 2011 with planning grants to states and colleges. In 2012, four states

entered a three-year AO implementation phase, which is the focus of this report.

AO promotes and supports the development of integrated career and college pathways that

incorporate contextualized and integrated instruction, team teaching between adult education and college

career and technical education (CTE) instructors, and enhanced support services at community colleges. AO

is also designed to change how states and colleges coordinate with government, business, and community

partners and reform policy and practice to fundamentally change how students with low basic skills access

and succeed in postsecondary education and the workforce. The AO initiative also leveraged promising

practices from earlier initiatives, particularly Breaking Through, Washington State’s Integrated Basic

Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) Program, and the career pathway models that were already in

development at the states and colleges.2

This final implementation report focuses on AO implementation in Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, and

Louisiana. AO implementation took place from January 2012 through the end of calendar year 2014 in

Illinois, Kansas, and Kentucky and from fall 2012 through summer 2015 in Louisiana. The report serves two

related purposes: (1) it documents the accomplishments of AO over three years of implementation and (2) it

also provides an in-depth description of the process and lessons that emerged from the initiative. The report

begins with an overview of the context in which the AO initiative developed and its underlying theory of

change. The next chapter provides an overview of AO activities and outcomes: the growth of the AO

initiative, the types of students served, and the resources used to support implementation. The following

chapter describes the implementation processes and lessons learned across the initiative, as states and

colleges adapted structures and systems to create opportunities for adult education students and other

low-skilled individuals to succeed in postsecondary education and eventually the labor market. Specifically,

the implementation chapter of the report examines the following:

How colleges made decisions about which occupations to select for AO career pathway offerings


How colleges recruited adult education and other students with low basic skills for integrated

career pathway programming

How colleges developed and implemented team-teaching instructional methods

How colleges provided students with comprehensive support services and the types of supports

offered

How colleges developed and leveraged both internal and external partnerships, including with

employers, to support effective AO implementation

How states repurposed and created new policies and found funds to help community colleges

implement career pathway programs and enroll students with low basic skills into for-credit career

and technical education courses

This report concludes with considerations for AO-participating states and colleges as they continue to

plan for scale and sustainability. The report also highlights lessons for the field concerning the

implementation of similar models and approaches.

These findings may be of particular interest to state policymakers and colleges interested in supporting

integrated career pathways for low-skilled adults. The report is especially relevant today, given the recent

passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 (WIOA) and current state efforts to plan

for its implementation. WIOA provides new opportunities for state adult education systems to better align

with CTE programs and the public workforce system. WIOA explicitly discusses integrated education and

career pathways as a strategy that states should deploy to serve adults seeking to build their skills to obtain

good jobs. The AO implementation experience offers valuable insights into how the four states transformed

their adult education programs and postsecondary institutions to provide occupation-specific training and

supports to help adult learners with low basic skills connect to the labor market.

The Need for a Better Approach to Help Low-Skilled Adults

The AO initiative was developed with the premise that in today’s economy, postsecondary education has

become increasingly important for economic advancement (Card 1999, 2001). As suggested in a 2013

report by the Department of Education, adult education programs designed to help low-skilled adults

typically have few effective links to postsecondary education.3 Finding a well-paying job becomes a difficult


challenge to individuals with low basic skills because few adult education students enroll in or complete

postsecondary education or gain occupational credentials (US Department of Education 2013).

Box 1 provides a macro-level view of the need for stronger adult education programming that moves

adults toward postsecondary enrollment and credentials. The research suggests that investing in the

improvement of adults’ basic skill levels will strengthen the economy and make the United States more

competitive globally.

BOX 1

Low Basic Skills: A Macro View

The need for strong adult education programming is acute as the U.S. faces persistent literacy challenges. The

Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, a comprehensive international test

administered in 2011–12, revealed that nearly one in five adult Americans displayed low literacy levels, and

nearly one in three displayed low numeracy levels (Goodman et al. 2013). Compared with the scores of other

countries in the study, the US scores are weak on literacy and very poor on numeracy (OECD 2013). The US

Department of Education estimated that 30 million adults fell below basic literacy levels in 2003; another 60

million adults could not perform at moderately challenging literacy levels.1 In addition, 11 percent of

noninstitutionalized adults ages 25 or older lacked a high school diploma or GED (General Educational

Development) credential in 2015.2 Moreover, many high school graduates are underprepared for postsecondary

education and are placed in developmental education classes. By one estimate, community colleges referred

approximately three-fifths of first-time enrolling students to at least one developmental math class and one-third

to at least one developmental reading class (Bailey, Jeong, and Cho 2010).

About three-quarters of the fastest-growing jobs in the next decade will require a high school credential and

some postsecondary education.3 In 2015, adults ages 25-64 with a high school credential but no college were

already disadvantaged, experiencing a 78 percent higher unemployment rate than those with some college or

greater.2 Based on these data, it appears that approximately 46 million adults lack the education required for

stable employment and family-sustaining wages. Innovative approaches to co-enrollment and career pathways,

such as AO, may help adults access the education necessary for labor market success.

1. See “National Assessment of Adult Literacy: Demographics, Overall,” US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, accessed January 25, 2016, http://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp.

2. Authors’ tabulations using the Bureau of Labor statistics data, based on data from the Current Population Survey (www.bls.gov/data).

3. Author tabulations using the Bureau of Labor Statistics data, based on data from the Current Population Survey (www.bls.gov/data). Of the 50 occupational areas projected to grow the fastest between 2014 and 2024, 74 percent will require at least some postsecondary education, whereas only 44 percent of the remaining 819 occupational areas will require at least some postsecondary education.

http://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp

http://www.bls.gov/data


The Accelerating Opportunity Theory of Change and the

Model as Designed

The key programmatic components of AO included I-BEST’s integrated career pathways approach and

contextualized instruction and Breaking Through’s focus on comprehensive student support services,

accelerated learning, labor-market payoffs, and aligning programs for low-skilled adults.4 Although AO

incorporated the key elements of previous initiatives, it had a distinct design, with enhanced elements such

as policy change, partnerships, and culture shift to institutionalize the model in the four states. Box 2

summarizes the key “nonnegotiable” design elements of the AO model.

The AO grant required that at least eight colleges per state offer two or more integrated career

pathways each. Traditional career pathway approaches utilize strategies that align with occupational

sectors and contextualized learning to help students achieve stackable, marketable, industry-recognized

credentials in high-wage areas with high demand or high expected growth. The pathways offer multiple

entry and exit points that allow for earnings gains at each point, and they provide intensive wraparound

supports (Clagett and Uhalde 2012; CLASP 2013; Fein 2012). AO’s integrated career pathway had these

features while also allowing for co-enrollment between adult education and CTE courses and incorporating

team-taught instruction. This integrated approach allowed for acceleration toward credentials for adults

with low basic skills. In addition, through team teaching, the adult education instructor and the CTE

instructor mutually reinforced the content, potentially enhancing the quality of instruction. Team teaching

is one form of integrated instruction, which combines technical training and basic skills contextualized for

the targeted occupation.

Colleges’ AO pathways consisted of at least 12 credits of course work in which students could earn one

or more stackable, industry-recognized credentials for an occupation. This was the first step on a longer

career pathway leading to additional credentials, an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, or the labor market.

Jobs for the Future (JFF)—the manager of the AO initiative—and its partners chose the 12-credit pathway

model leading to a credential, because earlier research on Washington State’s I-BEST model found that 12

credits appeared to be the “tipping point” above which students pursue further education and training.5

To ensure that the pathways addressed employers’ demand for skills, states and colleges needed to

partner with workforce organizations (workforce investment boards [WIBs] and One-Stop Career Centers)

and employers to shape and support the pathways. Because low-skilled students often face personal

barriers and must balance work and family, ensuring that comprehensive support services are available is an

important part of the AO model. Partnerships within and outside the college played a critical role in making

those services a reality.


The overall goal for the initiative was that each participating state would produce at least 3,600

credentials within the grant period. Participating colleges had to target recruitment efforts toward students

who were within National Reporting System levels 4–6 (6th- to 12th-grade equivalency levels) on math,

reading, or writing or National Reporting System levels 5–6 in English-language skills (high-intermediate to

advanced levels). Students in these ranges have high-intermediate basic education levels or above, but they

are still considered low-skilled because they score below college level. Though the initiative originally

targeted adults without high school credentials as the primary target population, the only formal eligibility

criterion was that students test within the qualifying skill levels. Therefore, eligible students may or may not

have had a high school diploma or GED certificate at program entry.

Figure 1, at the end of this chapter, provides an abbreviated version of the theory of change and

illustrates the relationship between the model’s elements and the main expected outcomes. Appendix A

contains a complete description of the model and the entire theory of change.

BOX 2

Key Design Elements: “Nonnegotiable” Aspects of the AO Model

Two or more integrated career pathways in at least eight colleges

Acceleration strategies

Academic and social student supports (e.g., tutoring, child care, transportation)

Dual enrollment strategies (e.g., paired courses, I-BEST or I-BEST-like approaches)

Marketable, stackable, credit-bearing certificates and degrees

Award of some college-level professional-technical credits

Partnerships with workforce investment boards and employers

Evidence of strong local demand for selected pathways

Recruitment of AO States

The AO initiative began with a nine-month design phase. JFF awarded $200,000 planning grants to 11

states to “analyze state labor market trends and baseline student data; assess current instructional

practices as well as college capacity to implement pathway programs; identify state and institutional policy

barriers and opportunities; develop a strategic communications plan; and build state and college data

capacity to prepare for participation in impact evaluations” (JFF 2011). Eligible AO states were required to


have existing adult basic education programs governed by a postsecondary or community college system.6

States that participated in the design phase were subsequently invited to apply for grants to implement

their plans.

JFF, its funders, and partners selected four states—Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, and North Carolina—to

receive the three-year implementation grants, which began on January 1, 2012. JFF then selected Louisiana

as a fifth implementation state, which began implementation in fall 2012. In late 2012, North Carolina

formally left the AO initiative to focus on its state Basic Skills Plus program. Other states (Arkansas,

Georgia, and Mississippi) joined the initiative as affiliate members, but the evaluation focuses on the four

states that received full three-year AO grants.7 At the end of the three-year grant period, JFF offered the

AO states a one-year extension. The extension year efforts are not included in this report.

The Accelerating Opportunity Evaluation

The AO evaluation—led by the Urban Institute and its partners, the Aspen Institute and George Washington

University—is a comprehensive assessment of the initiative that aims to produce valuable evidence for the

field and to inform public policy on new approaches to serving the education and workforce needs of adults

with low basic skills. The evaluation consists of three major components:

Implementation study: A qualitative study of the process through which states and colleges

undertook, scaled, and potentially sustained AO integrated pathways and an analysis of how well

the states and colleges implemented the AO model

Impact study: A quasi-experimental analysis designed to measure the effectiveness of the AO

model by comparing educational and labor-market outcomes of participants and similar students

who did not participate in AO

Cost–benefit analysis: A comparison of the costs and benefits for states, colleges, and students

engaged in the AO initiative

This publication is the final report for the AO implementation study.


Data Sources

This report is based on data collected as part of the implementation study. The data were collected from AO

state community college system offices and participating colleges through site visits to two colleges in each

state in fall 2012 (Illinois, Kansas, and Kentucky), summer 2013 (Louisiana), spring 2014 (Illinois, Kansas,

and Kentucky), and fall 2014 (Louisiana). During those visits, the evaluation team spent one day with the

state staff responsible for the initiative and the state’s partners and one day each at the two AO colleges.

Those site visits provided insight into the context in which the states and colleges were operating, how

colleges were implementing the model, and the types of partners involved. The site visits also provided an

opportunity for the evaluation team to observe AO classes and conduct focus groups with AO students at

each of the colleges visited.

The evaluation team fielded three in-depth, web-based surveys to all participating colleges to obtain

detailed data on the implementation of AO in each year of the initiative. The surveys collected data on the

colleges’ goals, the pathways implemented, student characteristics, the nature of the instruction and

support services, the resources used to operate AO, partnerships that supported the effort, and

sustainability plans. The college surveys achieved a 100 percent response rate in all years. The evaluation

team verified reported resources expended on AO with each college through individualized exchanges in

order to gather the most accurate information possible. All data from those surveys came from self-reports

by AO staff members at the colleges.

Finally, the evaluation team conducted two web-based surveys of current and former AO participants

to look at student experiences in the program. The first survey was administered in spring 2014 and focused

on the students’ motivation for enrolling in the program and their overall satisfaction with program services.

The second survey, administered one year later, focused on the students’ experiences after program exit.8

Spaulding and Martin-Caughey (2015) detail the results of the first student survey.


FIGURE 1

Abbreviated Accelerating Opportunity Theory of Change

Primary long-term outcomes

Notes: ABE = adult basic education; CTE = career and technical education; ESL = English as a second language; ROI = return on investment.

College and career pathways

Culture shift

Scale and

sustainability

• Expand professional development • Engage faculty • Redesign curriculum • Create learning networks • Engage employers

• Engage champions • Launch strategic communications • Track data • Promote access to campus resources

• Identify multisector resources • Remove policy barriers • Use cost–benefit analysis tools

• Employers engage with colleges on pathway development

• Two viable pathways per college • Multiple faculty deliver integrated

curriculum • Evidence-based and innovative

implementation

• Awareness of problem and solution • Greater ABE access to campus

resources • ABE population viewed as important • ABE students seek pathways • Investment in ABE data tracking

• Financial aid barriers removed • Colleges/states access untapped

funding to support pathways • Ability to analyze costs and benefits • Greater student tracking capacity and

linking data to labor market

Activities Two-year outcomes

• Multiple, sustainable pathways to credentials in 8 colleges per state

• ≥25% of AO students achieve marketable credentials and college credit in 8 colleges per state

• Robust, sustainable learning network

• ABE students supported and integrated into colleges

• Students know about available supports

• Demonstrated commitment to ABE student success

• Understand costs and ROI • 3–4 viable financing models • ≥25% of AO students enroll beyond

12 credits • Sufficient data for replication • States change policy for scale • Some federal barriers removed

Four-year outcomes

Student outcomes

Increased participation in CTE/academic programs

Increased access to support services Increased rates of completion/credential

attainment Increased job placement

College outcomes

Attitudinal and operational changes among faculty/staff

Increased percentage of ABE/ESL students entering CTE/academic programs

Increased integration of support services into college systems

State outcomes

Increase in policies that improve access to college for adult education students

Support of financing strategies that will scale and sustain AO

T H R E E Y E A R S O F A C C E L E R A T I N G O P P O R T U N I T Y 9

Three Years of Accelerating

Opportunity The AO initiative grew as states and colleges scaled their efforts throughout the initial

three-year grant period. It served and supported a large number of students as they

obtained credits and credentials and moved into employment. The number of colleges

that implemented AO across Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, and Louisiana increased from 34

in the first year to 54 in the third year,9 though some states saw broader participation

after the end of the initial three-year implementation period. The colleges implemented

154 pathways in the third year—an increase from 89 pathways in the first year—and

served 8,287 students in all.

This chapter provides a summary of the initiative’s growth over time, the types of students served

through the AO model, and their education and employment achievements. The data are self-reported

by participating colleges in annual surveys. Future evaluation activities will compare those numbers

with student-level records.

Students had important achievements, as reported by the colleges, earning 56,757 credits and

11,283 credentials. That resulting total is 78 percent of the 14,400 credentials initially targeted for the

AO initiative (3,600 credentials per state). Students also gained work experience during AO and

employment during and after AO. Over one-third (35 percent) engaged in work-based learning, such as

internships; 37 percent entered employment in any job; and 30 percent found a job related to the

occupational area of their pathway.

The value of in-kind and cash resources used for AO implementation averaged $227,018 per

college (median of $213,784) by the third year. Notably, resource costs declined from the first year,

whereas outputs—students served, credits, and credentials—increased. Most resources went toward

personnel. Colleges received some support for those investments from sources beyond the AO grant.

Important details about the resource calculations appear at the end of this chapter.

T H R E E Y E A R S O F A C C E L E R A T I N G O P P O R T U N I T Y 1 0

College Participation

A key goal of the AO initiative was to achieve scale within each state. AO mandated that at least eight

colleges in each state participate and, by the start of the initiative, all states had recruited at least eight

colleges through different methods.

Kansas and Louisiana began with 9 colleges, whereas Illinois and Kentucky started with 8, for a total

of 34 colleges. By the third grant year, all states except Louisiana had increased the number of colleges

participating in AO, bringing the total to 54 colleges.10

Louisiana brought additional colleges into the

career pathways effort (to total 13) but consistently counted 9 of them as “AO colleges” for the purpose

of the evaluation. Four of the Kansas colleges formed a consortium; those colleges are counted as one

for the evaluation because they undertook a unified effort and collectively completed one survey.

Figure 2 shows the percentage of all community and technical colleges in each state that took part

in AO. The proportion of colleges participating in AO varied by state. Of the four states in this study,

Illinois had the largest community college system (with 48 total colleges in its system, the third largest

in the country), and it engaged about 40 percent of its colleges (19 out of 48).11

The 14 AO colleges in

Kansas (4 of which were in a consortium and were counted as 1 for the evaluation) represented 54

percent of the 26 community and technical colleges in the state. By the end of the third year, Kentucky

was the only state that included all 16 colleges in its system in the AO program. Of the 13 colleges in

Louisiana, 9 (69 percent) participated in AO , though all colleges in the state were pursuing integrated

career pathways by the end of the third year through an AO-inspired state initiative that was not

evaluated as part of this effort.


FIGURE 2

Colleges Involved in AO

By state and year

Sources: First, second, and third years of the AO college survey.

Note: The first year began in September 2012 in Louisiana and in January 2012 in the other states. a Louisiana expanded aspects of the AO model to all 13 colleges in the state, but only the original 9 colleges are part of the

evaluation and therefore are counted here. b This figure counts separately the four Kansas colleges that formed a consortium. The remainder of this analysis counts those

colleges as one because they implemented one cohesive program and jointly completed one AO college survey each year.

Pathways Offered

The AO model calls for pathways in high-growth, high-wage industries. All participating colleges were

required to offer at least two for-credit career pathways that led to stackable, marketable, industry-

recognized credentials. Pathways were expected to be at least 12 credit hours in length. However, in

some cases, JFF allowed a few colleges to offer shorter or longer pathways if the college provided labor

market evidence that the pathways would lead to an in-demand job and family-sustaining wage.

The colleges implemented 154 pathways in the third year, an increase from 89 pathways in the first

year. The 65 additional pathways represent a net increase, as colleges added, removed, and changed

pathways to meet the needs of students and industry. Most of the added pathways came from the

increased number of colleges participating in three of the states. Among the colleges involved in AO all

three grant years, the number of pathways increased from 87 to 109. Figure 3 shows the growth in the

number of pathways offered in each state during the grant period.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

First year Second year Third year

Colleges

Illinois colleges in state = 48

Kansasb

colleges in state = 26

Louisianaa colleges in state = 13

Kentucky colleges in state = 16


FIGURE 3

Unique Pathways across the Implementation Period

By state and year


Note: The first year began in September 2012 in Louisiana and in January 2012 in the other states. Pathways are “unique” in that

the counts are unduplicated across semesters within each grant year.

The average number of pathways per college increased among the colleges that were involved in

AO all three years. The average grew from 2.6 pathways per college in the first year to 3.3 pathways per

college in the third year across all states, with the largest average number of pathways per college in

Kansas. Figure 4 summarizes pathway growth among colleges involved in AO for three grant years.

FIGURE 4

Average Pathways per College

By state and year, for colleges in AO for three years


Note: The first year began in September 2012 in Louisiana and in January 2012 in the other states.

19

27 22 21

26

38

32

24

37 40

51

26

Illinois Kansas Kentucky Louisiana


2.4

3.1 2.8

2.3

2.9

4.0

3.1

2.7 2.9

4.1

3.4

2.9




Overall, the states’ pathways primarily focused on the manufacturing and health occupations in all

states and all years. Across states, 39 percent of pathways were in manufacturing occupations, 32

percent were in health, and 10 percent were in automotive. No major shifts occurred over the years.

Kansas and Illinois had relatively more pathways in manufacturing, whereas Louisiana had relatively

more in health, reflecting the local labor market and capacity of the institutions to provide particular

pathways. The “Pathway Composition and Selection” section of the next chapter provides further detail

about the composition of pathways and how colleges made decisions about their pathway offerings.

Students Served

Over the three years, AO colleges enrolled 8,287 students in the AO pathways: 2,370 starting in the

first year, 2,874 starting in the second year, and 3,043 starting in the third year. Kansas had the highest

enrollment of the states in the first two years of AO, owing largely to Kansas colleges’ efforts to enroll

existing CTE students who scored in the eligible skill range in AO.12

The discussion of implementation in

the next chapter provides a more complete explanation of recruitment sources and the reasons for

shifts from adult education to other sources. Figure 5 summarizes some key characteristics of AO

students at entry. Appendix B contains complete student demographics by state and year.

In all states, slightly more than 50 percent of AO students were female. Students tended to be

younger adults; the median student age at entry was between 20 and 22 years in all states except

Kentucky, where the median student age was between 23 and 26. Some older students also

participated in AO; over one-fifth of students who started AO were over age 35.

The majority of AO students in Kansas and Kentucky were white, whereas the majority in Louisiana

were African American. In Illinois, about a third each were white, African American, and

Hispanic/Latino. In all states, the majority of AO students had a high school diploma or GED at entry,

though in Louisiana the rate was lower than in other states.

The initiative was originally designed to target adult education students. Ultimately, 37 percent of

students came from adult education (internal or external to college), 30 percent came from CTE or

developmental education programs within the college, and 33 percent from other sources, including

sources external to the college.13


FIGURE 5

Characteristics of Students at Entry

Data for new enrollees


Notes: The first year began in September 2012 in Louisiana and in January 2012 in the other states. All percentages are computed

for students for whom data are available; missing values are excluded. CTE = career and technical education; GED = General

Educational Development; Dev. ed. = developmental education.

Total Enrollment, by state and year

0

200

400

600

800

1,000

1,200

1,400


Students

KS

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

First Year Second Year Third Year

Students

KS

Age, by state, all years

10% 20% 12% 16%

22% 23%

18% 20%

25% 16%

19% 19%

26% 18% 24%

25%

15% 18% 24% 16%

IL KS KY LA

17–19 20–22 23–26

27–35 36–54 Over 54

10% 20% 12% 16%

22% 23%

18% 20%

25% 16%

19% 19%

26% 18% 24%

25%

15% 18% 24% 16%

IL KS KY LA

17-19 20-22 23-26

27-35 36-54 Over 54

Gender, by state, all years

42% 48% 48% 48%

58% 52% 52% 52%

IL KS KY LA

Male Female

42% 48% 48% 48%

58% 52% 52% 52%

IL KS KY LA

Male Female

Race/Ethnicity, by state, all years

32% 53%

79%

26%

35%

18%

13%

67%

31% 21%

9%

IL KS KY LA

White African American

Hispanic/Latino Asian, multiple, other

32% 53%

79%

26%

35%

18%

13%

67%

31% 21%

9%

IL KS KY LA

White African-American

Hispanic/Latino Asian, Multiple, Other

Educational Attainment, by state, all years

48% 69%

78%

21%

28%

16% 17%

27%

19% 12%

47%

IL KS KY LA

HS diploma GED Other high school None

48% 69% 78%

21%

28%

16% 17%

27%

19% 12%

47%

IL KS KY LA

HS Diploma GED Other HS None

Recruitment Source, by state, all years

45%

21%

45% 30%

50% 18%

18% 47% 28% 19%

65%

IL KS KY LA

Other CTE Dev. ed. Adult ed.

45% 21%

45% 30%

50% 18%

18% 47% 28% 19%

65%

IL KS KY LA

Other CTE Dev. Ed. Adult Ed.

KY LA

IL


Outcomes

The primary outcomes of interest for AO were attainment of credits, postsecondary and industry-

recognized credentials, and employment. The only formal performance measure for the initiative was

that states award 3,600 postsecondary or industry-recognized credentials by the end of the three-year

grant period. However, one student could earn more than one credential, and many pathways stacked

multiple credentials into the initial 12-credit pathway.14

Student outcomes do not represent impacts of

AO, since the evaluation team has not yet compared participants to nonparticipants with similar

characteristics to project what would have happened in the absence of AO. The information in this

section comes from reporting by college staff. The forthcoming impact report will contain a quasi-

experimental analysis as well as data from other sources, including state administrative records.

By the end of the three years, the 8,287 AO students earned 56,757 college course credits and

11,283 credentials, as reported by the colleges. Figure 6 shows the credit and credential awards by

state. Note that differences in totals among states may relate to the number of colleges involved in the

initiative.

FIGURE 6

Credits and Credentials Awarded

By state


Table 1 shows the number of students enrolled in and the number of credits and credentials

awarded in each of the five most common occupational areas. Though manufacturing pathways

outnumbered health pathways (39 percent of pathways versus 32 percent), far more AO students were

enrolled in health pathways than in manufacturing (4,083 versus 2,711). Manufacturing pathways

included welding, which was very common.

12,018

25,429

12,686

6,624

2,301 5,084

2,087 1,811


Credits earned Credentials earned


Of the top five occupational areas, students earned the most credits on average in automotive

pathways (10.8 credits) and the most credentials in automotive and health pathways (1.5 credentials).

Though students in health pathways earned more credentials on average than students in

manufacturing pathways, they earned substantially fewer credits on average (5.5 versus 8.0), meaning

that the credentials awarded in health pathways likely required fewer credits to complete. That

outcome was consistent with information gathered from other parts of the survey and from the site

visits; health pathways tended to have a higher number of credentials in the initial 12-credit pathway,

sometimes as many as five.

TABLE 1

Enrollment and Achievements by Occupational Area

All states and all years

Manufacturing Health Automotive Business Education Other Students 2,711 4,083 510 199 81 703 Credits 21,631 22,288 5,527 1,189 592 5,531 Credentials 3,629 5,935 785 111 28 795 Credits per student 8.0 5.5 10.8 6.0 7.3 7.9 Credentials per student 1.3 1.5 1.5 0.6 0.3 1.1


Employment

Through their AO programs, 35 percent of students (2,914 students) experienced work-based learning,

such as internships, clinical rotations, and apprenticeships; 37 percent (3,106 students) were hired for a

job; and 30 percent (2,503 students) were hired for a job related to their training.15

Students may have

had more than one of those experiences; the categories are not mutually exclusive. In addition, more

information about labor market activity will become available through later analysis, which will examine

AO student employment before, during, and after program completion through administrative

records.16

Figure 7 shows the results by state. Additional outcome data are available in appendix C.


FIGURE 7

AO Student Employment during the AO Program

By state


Financing and College Resources Expended

Colleges participating in AO were asked to accomplish a great deal with relatively modest resources.

Grant funding ranged from $8,800 to $140,000 in the first year, with the average at about $52,000 per

college. The amounts were similar for the original colleges in subsequent years. Because the resources

necessary for the program were higher than their AO allotments, colleges complemented the grant

money with funds from other sources, such as federal or state funds, partner funds, or their own

institutional resources. Many colleges received financing well beyond the cost of AO by leveraging AO

to bring in additional investments, such as federal TAACCCT grants and Title III funds.17

College Resources Expended

States and colleges invested substantial resources to make CTE programming available to students with

low basic skills so students could enter and complete career-oriented education and move into higher-

paid employment more quickly. One goal of the evaluation is to try to capture those investments and

monetize them when possible, in order to estimate the dollar value of the resources that states and

colleges invest in AO.

This section summarizes the value of incremental resources used by the colleges to implement

AO—that is, the extra resources used beyond what the colleges would have invested if AO did not

exist.18

The estimates account for only the resources used by the colleges and thus do not include costs

38% (545)

41% (589)

29% (414)

35% (1,088)

36% (1,097) 30%

(933)

40% (822)

30% (612) 25%

(502)

27% (459)

47% (808)

38% (654)

Placed in work-based learning Hired for any job Hired for a job related to training



to the students (such as forgone earnings or tuition) and to the state and federal government. All costs

will be incorporated into the cost–benefit analysis, which will be released by early 2017.19

The economic costs, or real resources used, do not necessarily represent money directly expended.

Most colleges did not write a check for the entire amount of the resources used; colleges redirected

some portion of the resources captured in this analysis from other potential uses. The analysis accounts

for redirected resources because they were “used up” by AO when they could have gone toward other

activities that were of value to the college.20

The resources reported here are net, so savings are

subtracted from the total (classes not given because of AO, for example).

Added resources used for AO include the time allocated to AO by administrators, instructors,

counselors, and other personnel; supplies; space; advertising; and supports. The resource measures

compare the actual costs with what they would have been under “business as usual.” In many cases,

business as usual for this student population would be adult education programming, although in some

colleges, it may be CTE or developmental education programs.

Figure 9 shows the unit costs by year and state, as well as the percentage increase (red) or decrease

(green) in cost between the first and third year. On average, colleges used about $233,000 in extra

resources for AO in the first year. By the third year, the resources used for AO per college had

decreased to about $227,000, even as the number of students served and credits and credentials

awarded increased. The left-hand panel of figure 8 shows the total resources used in each state and the

number of colleges in the cost analysis. Only colleges with data on resources expended for all three

years are included in this analysis (30 colleges). The right-hand panel of figure 8 shows the mean

(average) and median resource expenditures per college. Though some variation exists, the spending

patterns are similar across all four states, with comparable average and median investment amounts

per college.

As shown in appendix D, the majority of the outlays in all states and years went toward personnel.

Personnel resources included the cost of providing an additional teacher to implement team-teaching

approaches, as well as the cost of providing student supports, since the majority of AO colleges hired

coaches and navigators for the program.


FIGURE 8

Resources Used to Support AO

By state and year



FIGURE 9

Resources Used per Credit, Credential, and Pathway Semester



Total resources, by state and year

$0

$500,000

$1,000,000

$1,500,000

$2,000,000

$2,500,000


$0

$500,000

$1,000,000

$1,500,000

$2,000,000

$2,500,000


Mean and median resources per college, by state and year

$0

$100,000

$200,000

$300,000

Mean Median Mean Median Mean Median Mean Median



Resources per credit, by state and year

$0

$200

$400

$600

$800

$1,000



$0

$200

$400

$600

$800

$1,000



Resources per credential, by state and year

$0

$1,000

$2,000

$3,000

$4,000

$5,000



$0

$1,000

$2,000

$3,000

$4,000

$5,000



Resources per pathway semester, by state, year

$0

$10,000

$20,000

$30,000

$40,000

$50,000

$60,000



$0

$10,000

$20,000

$30,000

$40,000

$50,000

$60,000



IL (n=8)

KY (n=7)

LA (n=9)

KS (n=6)

+70%

−66%

−53%

−1%

−28%

−40%

−39%

−25%

−18%

−53%

−31% −10%


Over this period, many colleges’ programs were growing, adding students, services, and pathways.

Therefore, it is also instructive to look at the unit costs per credit, credential, and pathway and at how

they changed over time. It is common for organizations implementing new programs to economize on

resources used in later years. In putting a new program in place, organizations often experience one-

time start-up costs. Those costs accrue when organizations invest in planning for implementation,

intensive initial professional development and technical assistance, concentrated recruitment efforts,

and other start-up activities. Of course, organizations also invest resources in ongoing program

development, particularly in the first few years of rollout. However, resource needs are often highest

and program outputs (e.g., credits and credentials) are lower in the first year. Over time, unit costs (i.e.,

costs per credential or credit) often decrease.

AO results show that overall and unit costs declined in all cases in the second year but in some cases

increased somewhat in the third year. There are several possible explanations for this pattern. State AO

leadership indicated that the third-year increase likely stems from colleges contributing additional

resources to AO to scale the initiative to additional pathways and to create structures for sustainability.

State leadership also mentioned other factors, such as trying to spend down other grants (like

TAACCCT or workforce incentive funds) or growth in noncredit programs (particularly in Louisiana),

which would affect per-credit unit costs.

A O I M P L E M E N T A T I O N S U M M A R Y 2 1

AO Implementation Summary The AO colleges, AO states, and the wider field can learn important lessons from AO

implementation. To implement the AO model, colleges and states had to adapt existing

structures and systems to meet the initiative’s overall goal of increasing the ability of

students with low basic skills to earn valued occupational credentials and enter well-

paying careers. This was a time-intensive undertaking and entailed a steep learning

curve for state program administrators, college staff, and faculty who changed both how

they served low-skilled students and how they viewed them in the college system. The

colleges developed career pathways leading to certificates and credentials that were

accessible to adults with low basic skills in occupational areas with strong local labor-

market demand. Further, colleges applied acceleration and dual-enrollment strategies

to the content and delivery of instruction. Colleges had to adapt to their state’s policy

and financing systems, while the states sought additional funding and sometimes

changed policy to support the colleges’ AO efforts. In addition, AO state teams were

responsible for providing guidance and support to the colleges that were implementing

the model.

This chapter describes how states and colleges used AO to adapt structures and systems in order to

improve opportunities for adult education students and low-skilled individuals to succeed in

postsecondary education and eventually the labor market. The chapter closes with observations on how

AO implementation changed attitudes and culture at community colleges, among state stakeholders,

and of the students themselves concerning the ability of students with low basic skills to enroll in

postsecondary education and earn marketable credentials.

State Support of AO Implementation

The leadership and support of the state AO teams were critical in helping colleges implement the AO

model on the ground. Each of the four states constructed state AO teams to provide leadership,

professional development, and technical assistance and help improve the capacity of colleges to deliver

the AO model. The types of assistance that states provided to colleges included helping with pathway

development, developing recruitment and outreach strategies, providing local labor-market

information, and training on integrated instruction methods.


State teams also engaged multiple stakeholders to galvanize policy support for AO and to maintain

it as a state priority. In particular, the original AO request for proposals sought state leaders who could

“build support for the initiative within the higher education agency, among external stakeholders, and

with colleges” (JFF 2011). The grant also required the governor’s sign-off, ensuring buy-in among state

administrators.

To accomplish their objectives, the state teams developed strategies to contribute to a state policy

environment more conducive to meeting the needs of students with low basic skills, particularly adult

education students. State teams focused their policy work on (a) changing assessment practices for

students with low basic skills, (b) aligning curricula to allow for acceleration, (c) developing new funding

models to support integrated instruction strategies, and (d) improving the capabilities for data

collection and tracking of students. For instance, AO state teams were instrumental in supporting

colleges when the Pell grant’s “Ability to Benefit” (ATB) provision ended in 2012, which meant that

students without high school credentials could not qualify for federal financial aid. This provision was

reinstated in 2015, toward the end of the AO effort—too late for colleges to use Pell grants to support

tuition for AO students. Changes in ATB affected original plans throughout the initiative to recruit

heavily from adult education. As a result, each state team had to work with its AO colleges to figure out

ways they could provide tuition support for AO for students without a high school diploma. Finally,

state teams worked on connecting the AO initiative with other state efforts to connect low-skilled

adults to education and workforce services.

Each state developed a unique approach to working with relevant stakeholders and colleges. The

following sections describe the structure of each AO state team and the type of systems and policies

they enhanced or developed to support the implementation of AO by colleges.

Illinois

A team within ICCB, the state’s coordinating board for community colleges, oversaw the management

of AO at the state level. Initially, ICCB’s Division of Adult Education solely managed the initiative. In its

second year, staff members from ICCB’s CTE Division joined the AO management team. The state AO

team considered the inclusion of CTE in AO management to be a key turning point in the initiative

because it created collaboration opportunities for CTE and adult education offices, at both the state and

college levels. The CTE Division’s management role in the initiative at the state level also signaled

college-level adult education and CTE offices about the need to collaborate more closely on helping

adult education students transition to postsecondary education.


The Illinois AO state team also leveraged existing work and structures to facilitate the transition of

adult education students into postsecondary programs. ICCB’s 2009 strategic plan redefined the

purpose of adult education from a focus on GED completion to a focus on transition into postsecondary

education. The Shifting Gears initiative was also instrumental in laying the foundation for AO in Illinois

by establishing systems to create and scale up career pathways and bridge programs in community

colleges.21

Overall, the goals of initiatives such as Shifting Gears and AO were well aligned with state

goals to increase the proportion of adults with high-quality postsecondary credentials to 60 percent by

2025.

The state team supported colleges with the resources needed to launch AO. To support the

implementation of the AO model, the state team provided a $10,000 planning grant to each of the initial

participating colleges. Those grants allowed the colleges to be part of the design process from the

beginning and enabled them to launch career pathways quickly when the initiative started in early

2012. ICCB also contributed additional adult education and CTE funds to colleges to support AO, which

colleges used to cover allowable costs.

The Illinois AO state team achieved two major policy wins to ensure the funding of programs for

students with low basic skills and adult education students during the AO implementation period. In

2012, ICCB was successful in getting adult education metrics such as transition rates and skills level

gains to be included in performance-based funding measures for the state’s community colleges. That

change added an incentive for community colleges to address the needs of adult education students

more intentionally and to work more closely with the state Division of Adult Education. However, state

budget cuts made the funding less substantial than initially planned. In 2013, ICCB changed their policy

so that they recognized AO students who were enrolled in CTE credit-bearing courses as

postsecondary CTE students. This allowed AO students to access some support from Perkins funds.

Similarly, CTE programs that worked alongside adult education to implement the AO model were able

to draw upon Perkins funding to support program expenditures. The integration of AO students into

Perkins, which has always had supporting career pathways as a goal, further institutionalized AO within

the state’s career pathways strategy.

Finally, in addition to aligning AO to existing state-level goals and related initiatives, the state team

used ICCB’s professional development partners to support AO colleges in developing and implementing

integrated career pathways. Specifically, ICCB initially tapped its Southern Illinois Professional

Development Center, which was providing training on bridge programs to adult education professionals

prior to AO. In partnership with the Illinois Center for Specialized Professional Support, which provides

services to CTE professionals statewide, the Southern Illinois Professional Development Center has


developed and delivered training tools on integrated pathways. Specifically, it staged an annual

Transitions Academy, which brought the “original eight” AO colleges together with a cohort of college

administrators and faculty to help them design or improve bridge programs or integrated career

pathways. The state plans to continue the Transitions Academy model to support statewide

implementation of the AO model.

Box 3 summarizes Illinois’s AO implementation efforts in the three-year grant period.

BOX 3

Illinois Summary

Managing Agency: Illinois Community College Board

Partnership between the Division of Adult Education and Career and Technical Education Division

Financing and Policy Work to Support AO Implementation:

Gave colleges additional adult education and CTE funds to support AO

Created performance-based funding measures that included adult education measures

Accessed Perkins funds for AO activities

Technical Assistance and Professional Development: ICCB’s Southeast Professional Development Center

and the Center for Specialized Professional Support provided training and tools on both bridge programs and

integrated pathways.

Kansas

The Kansas Board of Regents (KBOR), the coordinating board for the state’s 26 postsecondary

community and technical colleges, served as the lead for AO. KBOR worked in partnership with the

Kansas Department of Commerce in managing AO implementation. The agencies jointly provided funds

to expand the role of the director of workforce training and education, a shared position across the two

agencies whose function is to strengthen connections between workforce and education efforts, to

work closely with the state adult education director and to support AO. The state team saw AO as an

opportunity to spur economic growth by helping the state’s population of low-skilled adults move into

the workforce. By focusing on that benefit, the state team sought to build up the “business case” for AO

and position it as a workforce development initiative.


Kansas was also able to build on work from previous federal- and state-funded initiatives to support

the implementation of AO, including the Kansas Health Profession Opportunity Project, Ready for

College, and Keeping Kansas Competitive.22

Each of those efforts had related goals: (a) getting more

individuals into career pathways, (b) increasing the number of students with industry-recognized

credentials, and (c) improving job placement and wages of graduates. KBOR sought to align those goals

through AO. Another related structural support was the state’s program alignment effort, under which

KBOR aligned industry credentials and credit hours in technical programs offered by community and

technical colleges across the state. KBOR’s work on those related projects allowed the state team to

launch AO quickly, since some technical programs and career pathways were easily adapted to the AO

model. In addition, some of those projects required collaboration with workforce and human services

agencies, enabling KBOR to build on already-established relationships with the Kansas Department of

Commerce and the Kansas Department for Children and Families (KDCF).

Kansas’s intentional cross-agency involvement helped streamline support among relevant

stakeholders to institute policy changes that would help community and technical colleges implement

AO. During the second year of the initiative, KBOR leveraged its partnership with the KDCF to use

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds for tuition scholarships for students eligible for

cash benefits. That policy was designed to counteract the effects of the termination of ATB on colleges’

ability to recruit more students without high school credentials into AO. In another policy shift, KBOR

changed the performance-based funding formula for adult education so that programs did not lose

money by participating in AO.

One of the largest policy achievements to support AO in Kansas was legislation, known as the GED

Accelerator, passed in 2014 supporting tuition for students enrolled in AO programs and incentivizing

colleges to support GED and credential attainment. The GED Accelerator legislation allocated $1.9

million through the end of June 2015 for incentive funds to colleges supporting transition for adults

without secondary school credentials into CTE.23

The legislation also provided at least $500,000

annually for tuition support for AO students through what was officially called the AO-K Proviso. The

state legislature continued to support both of these programs after the end of the AO grant period.

Finally, KBOR also worked closely with Washington State and the National College Transition

Network to create a sustainable professional development structure to train its college staff and faculty

in integrated instruction methods and to train career navigators. KBOR created “train the trainer”

offerings that encouraged “champion” instructors to share their expertise with others across the state.

KBOR also utilized some existing online modules for new AO instructors. Finally, KBOR worked with

direct service workforce staff members to assist them with eligibility criteria for individual training


accounts in order to encourage approval of tuition funds to support training for AO students. The

increased focus on individual training accounts was in part a response to ATB changes.

Box 4 summarizes Kansas’s AO implementation efforts in the three-year grant period.

BOX 4

Kansas Summary

Managing Agency: The Kansas Board of Regents

Partnership with the Kansas Department of Commerce and the Kansas Department for Children and Families


Leveraged previous program alignment efforts to create AO pathways

Negotiated an agreement with the Kansas Department for Children and Families to access TANF funds for AO tuition

Changed the adult education funding formula to align with AO

Implemented the $1.9 million GED Accelerator and $500,000 AO-K Proviso legislation that provided tuition support for AO students and incentivized colleges

Technical Assistance and Professional Development: The Kansas Board of Regents used online modules,

developed train-the-trainer offerings, and assisted workforce staff on navigating rules about individual

training accounts to encourage approval of funds supporting AO tuition and training.

Kentucky

The Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) led the AO initiative in partnership

with Kentucky Adult Education and the Kentucky Education and Workforce Development Cabinet. Top

officials from all three agencies formed an executive committee leading the implementation of AO; the

committee structure signified that AO is an initiative for Kentucky, not just for the Kentucky

community colleges. Before coming together for AO, those three agencies partnered on other related

initiatives, such as Skill Up Kentucky (a contextualized GED program) and JFF’s Breaking Through.

Beyond bringing the three agencies together at the state level, Kentucky colleges participating in

AO also formed executive-level teams that mirrored the structure of the state team. Local teams had a

college leadership representative, a Kentucky Adult Education local representative, and a Kentucky

Education and Workforce Development Cabinet local representative. KCTCS also hired a full-time AO


statewide program coordinator who was central throughout the grant period in addressing the needs of

AO colleges.

Throughout AO implementation, all three agencies shared the goal of enabling individuals with low

basic skills to access postsecondary education that leads to family-sustaining jobs while maintaining

their own priorities. Their motivation for supporting the AO model influenced how they participated

and contributed to the initiative’s implementation process. For KCTCS, AO was a strategy to help low-

skilled students enter and complete college and bypass developmental education. Kentucky Adult

Education focused on improving the quality of adult education services throughout the state and

increasing the number of students who attained their high school equivalency and transferred to a

postsecondary institution. The Kentucky Education and Workforce Development Cabinet focused on

building the employment pipeline by supporting low-skilled individuals attaining family-sustaining jobs.

They perceived that GED attainment and postsecondary education were critical components to helping

achieve that employment outcome. The three organizations stayed focused on their primary missions,

but all state team members reported that the focus of the AO initiative helped them find common

ground and develop a productive working relationship with one another. Specifically, the AO state

executive team has described the partnership as helpful in laying the foundation to recalibrate the

systems and use of resources to serve low-skilled adults more effectively.

Each of the agencies contributed its own funds and resources to supplement AO grant funds.

During the grant period, KCTCS covered the cost for AO grant coordinators at each of the colleges to

be liaisons among the three partners and manage the initiative locally. KCTCS also appropriated state

workforce funds to help colleges launch AO and, in 2014, used workforce incentive funds to create a

scholarship for GED-seeking students who were not eligible for federal financial aid. Kentucky Adult

Education provided matching funds throughout the grant for instructor and classroom expenses to its

providers participating in AO. The Kentucky Education and Workforce Development Cabinet provided

funds for AO student outreach efforts and worked with its local partners so that graduating AO

students would be connected with a career coach for individualized guidance.

The Kentucky state team also helped facilitate the implementation of several policies to support

AO implementation at the college level. The AO initiative helped the state team build on ongoing efforts

to improve the quality of adult education instruction, specifically work to align adult education curricula

to the federal Common Core Standards. The state team also worked with colleges to change their

assessment policies for incoming students. KCTCS now allows colleges to use the Test of Adult Basic

Education as an assessment exam for incoming students instead of traditional college admissions

exams, such as the ACT or SAT, which reduces the barriers to college entry for adult education students


by minimizing the number of separate tests students need to take. Finally, the AO initiative has helped

the state move forward in its efforts to strengthen its P-20 data warehouse system to better connect

information from various systems, including education and workforce. Those data efforts are helping

the state better track outcomes for low-skilled individuals.

Box 5 summarizes Kentucky’s AO implementation efforts in the three-year grant period.

BOX 5

Kentucky Summary

Managing Agency: Kentucky Community and Technical College System

Partnership with Kentucky Adult Education and Kentucky Education and Workforce Development Cabinet


Benefited from state agencies contributing $2.6 million of their own funds and resources to supplement AO grant dollars

Created a scholarship from workforce incentive funds to support tuition for students without a high school credential

Aligned adult education curricula with federal Common Core Standards

Allowed colleges to use the Test of Adult Basic Education for incoming students

Developed a data system to connect education and workforce data

Technical Assistance and Professional Development: KCTCS hired a statewide program coordinator to

connect colleges to technical assistance and professional development resources.

Louisiana

The Louisiana Community and Technical College System (LCTCS) is the managing agency for AO in

Louisiana. LCTCS manages 13 community and technical colleges within the state. Since 2010, LCTCS

has also managed Louisiana adult education services. Under LCTCS, adult education focuses primarily

on transitioning adult education students into postsecondary institutions; it has been branded as

WorkReady U, a statewide framework for moving more underprepared adult learners into training and

credential attainment.


As in the case of the other three states, the Louisiana state team made considerable efforts to

integrate AO with other statewide priorities. For instance, LCTCS led its colleges in major structural

and institutional reforms in order to improve student completion, transfer rates to four-year

institutions, and labor-market outcomes. Some of those major changes included merging three

community colleges with technical colleges and making vast improvements to LCTCS’s data systems.

Those changes have not been easy for colleges to navigate, but they have created a ripe environment

for introducing different approaches, such as AO, to improve instruction and services for students.

LCTCS has also encouraged colleges to align the AO grant with other key initiatives, such as

TAACCCT and the Health Profession Opportunity Grants. For instance, Louisiana Delta Community

College was able to leverage a Health Profession Opportunity Grant to provide support services and

other resources toward the effort to develop integrated pathways for AO. The Louisiana state team

merged AO and TAACCCT efforts and encouraged TAACCCT colleges to do the same on the local level.

Furthermore, LCTCS has been able to work with the state legislature and the Louisiana Workforce

Commission to identify funds to support the implementation and eventual scale of AO throughout the

community college system. In 2014, AO operational costs at colleges were supported by $750,000 from

the state’s Workforce Training Rapid Response Fund and $430,000 from the state’s Workforce

Investment Act incentive award. Additionally LCTCS secured a grant for $1 million from the JPMorgan

Chase Foundation for its broader career pathway efforts. The grant was subsequently matched four to

one by a newly created state fund called the Workforce and Innovation for a Stronger Economy Fund,

resulting in a total investment of $5 million.

Other policy changes that have supported AO include LCTCS’s decision to allow colleges to waive

tuition for AO students for the first 12 credits. That policy helped enable colleges to enroll students

without a high school equivalency in AO. That policy change was also helpful since adults without high

school credentials could not get federal tuition support following the termination of ATB. In addition, as

in other states, LCTCS allows colleges to enroll adult education students into CTE courses without

requiring them to take traditional placement exams like COMPASS.

By the end of the third year, LCTCS had given seed money to all 13 colleges to implement AO-like

programming under the state’s unified “Train to Attain” banner. Train to Attain brings together efforts

under TAACCCT, AO, WorkReady U, and other related programs that promote integrated career

pathways.

LCTCS strived to provide technical assistance to participating colleges through regional and online

training modules on the development of integrated pathways, which launched late in the third year of


implementation. A new training module introduced in 2015 for all colleges focused on the Train to

Attain “triangular teaching model,” which represents the triangular support among the CTE staff, adult

education staff, and coaches or navigators and was inspired by I-BEST and AO.24

Box 6 summarizes Louisiana’s AO implementation efforts in the three-year grant period.

BOX 6

Louisiana Summary

Managing Agency: Louisiana Community and Technical College System

Partnership with the Louisiana Workforce Commission


Leveraged $5 million in other state funding, such as the Workforce Training Rapid Response Fund and the Workforce and Innovation for a Stronger Economy Fund, to support AO

Interpreted state laws broadly to allow colleges to waive tuition for AO students

Allowed adult education students to take CTE courses without taking a college placement exam

Technical Assistance and Professional Development: LCTCS developed regional training and online training

modules to ensure easy access to training on integrated pathways for faculty and staff.

College Development and Implementation of Integrated

Career Pathways

Several factors affected how the AO initiative unfolded, as AO college staff and faculty worked

together to develop integrated career pathways. This section focuses on five factors: (1) pathway

selection, (2) student recruitment, (3) design and delivery of team teaching, (4) support service

provision, and (5) partnership development. Each offers important lessons for the four states, the

colleges, and the broader field.

Pathway Composition and Selection

The details of pathway construction depended on state certification standards and other

considerations. Health care and manufacturing were the most common occupational areas for AO


pathways. A health pathway might consist of cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid, certified

nurse aide, certified medication aide, and phlebotomy or home health aide. A manufacturing pathway

may start with Occupational Safety and Health Administration certification, blueprint reading, and the

first industry-recognized technical credential in the specific manufacturing field, such as certified

production technician, computer numerical control operator, fundamentals of mechatronics, or a

welding technical certification.

Many considerations informed the process of selecting and constructing those pathways. A key

requirement of the AO model is that pathways train students for occupations that have sufficient labor-

market demand. AO states provided guidance on pathway selection to participating colleges to varying

degrees. For example, Illinois required the colleges to submit their pathway plans for review and

approval. The state required “adequate, verifiable evidence” that there was a demand for that pathway

in the local workforce, based on local labor-market information. All state teams strongly encouraged or

required colleges to use local labor-market information to make decisions about which pathways were

appropriate for the AO model.

For pathway selection, colleges had to balance local labor-market demand, a college’s capacity to

provide the pathway, and faculty and student interest in participating in AO. Colleges were required to

offer at least two AO pathways, though nearly half of colleges offered more than two pathways by the

third year. Although colleges sought to select pathways for AO that offered high wages or high growth

in the local labor market, many colleges ended up prioritizing institutional factors when selecting

pathways. For example, during site visits, several colleges noted that they selected pathways in CTE

departments that were willing to enroll adult education students into their courses and try out

integrated instruction methods. For those colleges, starting with CTE departments that were open to

changing instruction and to working across institutional lines was important because it allowed them to

start up quickly and to build up evidence of success. That early evidence helped colleges convince

administrators and faculty from other programs who were initially more skeptical about the approach

to try AO. The number of pathways in the original AO colleges increased from 87 to 109, indicating

success in bringing new programs into AO.

A program of study’s entry requirements also influenced pathway selection. Many CTE programs

have certain eligibility requirements (e.g., test scores or course prerequisites) that AO students with

basic skills deficiencies were often unable to meet. Some programs are accredited by state agencies that

limit the ability of individual institutions to control entry requirements. Another barrier is the

requirement of background checks or other screenings in sensitive professions like health care and

education.


Student occupational interests also informed college decisions on AO pathway selection. Colleges

wanted to make sure to offer AO pathways in areas of study that would attract enrollment. Many staff

members in charge of student recruitment discussed the challenge of overcoming student

misinformation about the actual labor-market demand of some occupations. They sometimes created

visuals or other tools to communicate to students the importance of choosing programs of study that

would offer job opportunities after completion.

Finally, as colleges became more adept at thinking about the implementation of integrated

pathways, many returned to a focus on labor-market demand and recalibrated some of their pathway

offerings. For example, one Kentucky college that had initially offered early childhood education as an

AO program of study later decided to discontinue that pathway in favor of a welding pathway that was

responsive to local labor demand.

Box 7 summarizes elements of AO implementation that can inform pathway selection.

BOX 7

AO Implementation Highlights: Pathway Selection

When selecting pathways, colleges weighed local labor-market demand against student interest in certain occupations.

Institutional factors and relationships mattered. It was helpful for AO staff to work closely with CTE departments that bought into the AO model, which allowed them to develop a “proof of concept” to convince more skeptical departments.

CTE program eligibility requirements influenced pathway selection because many programs have skill entry requirements that are harder for students with low basic skills to meet.

Colleges refined and expanded their pathway offerings over time.

Student Recruitment

Colleges served students from different recruitment sources. Louisiana colleges focused largely on the

adult education population in their recruitment efforts; 65 percent of AO enrollees came from adult

education programs. To support tuition costs, the state interpreted tuition waiver rules broadly so that

colleges could waive tuition for AO students who could not qualify for federal aid. That policy change

seemed to play a large part in allowing colleges to serve the adult education population.


In addition to recruiting adult education students, several Illinois colleges recruited from sources

outside the college, such as community-based organizations (CBOs), YouthBuild programs, and

workforce offices. The state team indicated that the types of students who entered from those other

sources were largely similar to adult education students, in that relatively few of them had high school

credentials and they faced similar barriers to college enrollment. Forty-seven percent of AO students in

Illinois came from adult education and an additional 44 percent came from other sources external to the

college.

The Kansas AO initiative served large numbers of students from CTE programs, whereas

Kentucky’s AO program attracted many from college developmental education programs. Though the

students were already in colleges and possessed high school credentials, they scored in the AO-eligible

range on basic skills tests, signaling that they had low basic skill levels. State and college leadership

indicated that the focus on CTE and developmental education students in two of the states was

influenced by the elimination of the Pell ATB provision. In the three years before the provision was

reinstated, colleges had to find other ways to offset tuition costs for adults without high school

credentials, so they started enrolling students into the program who could more easily qualify for Pell

grants.25

The shift to CTE and developmental education students also reflected a general recruitment

strategy to increase enrollment from an eligible segment of the student population that could benefit

from AO and could enroll quickly enough to meet state and college enrollment goals.

Kansas colleges recruited largely from CTE programs for two reasons. First, given the changes to

financial aid rules, the state faced challenges in funding adult education student tuition before the

agreement with KDCF and the new legislative appropriations for tuition came through. Second, Kansas

is a relatively small state, and the state and college leadership were concerned about their ability to

meet the 3,600-credential expectation by serving adult education students alone. To recruit from the

CTE population, AO staff at many colleges negotiated with individual instructors of introductory CTE

courses to administer an adult basic skills test to all students in the already-convened classrooms.

College staff in Kansas consistently reported that around 90 percent of the students tested scored

within the eligible range for AO participation. In those cases, the entire classroom would receive AO

resources, including team teaching and the services of a navigator or access to other AO supports.26

Kansas also recruited from adult education programs, either within the college or offered by

community-based organizations, but adult education students constituted only 28 percent of the AO

student population in the state.

Kentucky was also challenged to support adult education student tuition and did not find additional

funds to offset the Pell grant changes in the implementation period. KCTCS allowed colleges to waive


tuition for students without high school credentials for one semester, but many colleges instead either

turned to students already enrolled in developmental education programs or routed students who

would otherwise have been directed into developmental education courses toward AO. Those students

generally had high school credentials but scored below college level on college entrance examinations

or adult basic skill tests. Only 19 percent of the Kentucky AO population came from adult education

programs. Starting the fall 2014 semester, Kentucky began to offer a tuition scholarship for GED

students who were not eligible for Pell through state workforce incentive funds.

Box 8 summarizes strategies colleges implemented to support student recruitment into AO.

BOX 8

AO Implementation Highlights: Student Recruitment

Colleges developed partnerships with external agencies such as workforce agencies and community-based organizations to create pipelines for student recruitment.

Colleges examined policy and resource options for supporting the cost of tuition for adult education students who did not qualify for financial aid.

Some colleges relied more heavily on adult education programs for student recruitment, while other colleges focused more on low-skilled students in CTE or developmental education programs.

Team Teaching

Team teaching is a core element of the AO model. This approach pairs a CTE instructor with an adult

education instructor in a technical content course; both are responsible for instruction. The team-

teaching model encourages an approach in which students view both instructors as equally important

contributors to the content, even as their roles may vary within a single lesson or throughout a course.

The team-teaching model also encourages collaboration to be as active as possible between teachers,

including aligning learning objectives. Finally, the approach requires planning time and coordination of

instruction to align the overlap of instructors and the contextualization of basic skills content within

CTE content and instruction.

AO states and colleges received training and technical assistance in team-teaching methods

through the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges in Washington State. AO colleges were

required to establish team teaching in their pathways for at least 25 percent of instructional hours over

the course of a term. Nearly all colleges reported meeting that requirement (though verification was


difficult), but the intensity of and instructional methods used for team teaching varied both across and

within states.

Some variation emerged from differences in state guidance. Kansas adopted the requirement of 25

percent overlap; Kentucky required colleges to pick either a 35 or 50 percent overlap; Illinois targeted

an overlap of 50–100 percent; and the Louisiana state team encouraged colleges to target an overlap

that was suitable for the type of course, between 25 percent and 75 percent. Some colleges also offered

supplemental instruction on basic skills outside the classroom, contextualized for the CTE program of

study. For example, if a student was in a welding pathway, the adult education instructor contextualized

the supplemental instruction on basic skills topics to welding concepts. In some cases, colleges offered

contextualized supplemental instruction in lieu of team teaching or instructor overlap, though this does

not align with the AO model.

As in the case of pathway selection, the initial decision on how and in which courses to implement

team teaching depended greatly on the support of CTE faculty and staff. During the initial

implementation period, several CTE instructors reported that they were skeptical of having a second

instructor in their classroom. Colleges adopted a variety of strategies to increase buy-in for team-

teaching approaches among CTE faculty who were part of AO. For instance, some colleges selected

adult education instructors for team teaching who were interested in and knowledgeable about the

occupational content. Some colleges also had adult education instructors audit CTE classes a semester

before starting team teaching so they could become familiar with the content. Adult education

instructors reported that both of these approaches made it easier for them to identify their role in the

classroom. AO college staff reported that the more CTE instructors participated in team-taught

courses, the more positive they became in their attitudes toward the approach and in the abilities of

students with low basic skills. Those changes represented an important element of culture shift within

the AO institutions.

College staff members also reported that they considered their team’s ability to work together and

the nature of the course content in deciding how to structure team teaching. During site visit

conversations, adult education instructors who worked with multiple CTE instructors reported using

different team-teaching formats in different courses, depending on the receptiveness and preferences

of the technical instructor, as well as the course’s specific content. For example, the team teaching

approach used for a medical terminology course might be different from the team teaching approach

used in a welding course. In a medical terminology course, an adult education co-instructor might

develop study guides to help students review content, while in the welding class the adult education co-

instructor might circulate the room and support students if they have questions for the CTE instructor.


College survey results over three years indicated a wide variation in team-teaching methods used,

even within the same college. Students also acknowledged that variation in team-teaching methods in

focus groups and through the student survey. According to the 2014 student survey data, most

students (72 percent) acknowledged frequently experiencing some type of integrated instruction for

their AO coursework.

The vast majority of the students found team teaching to be beneficial and expressed the desire for

more team teaching and tutoring supports. Forty-three percent of the students surveyed indicated they

would have liked more team teaching, and 63 percent of students without a high school credential

would have liked more team teaching. As evidenced by site visit observations and interviews, the adult

education instructor became a social support for students above and beyond providing academic

reinforcement at many colleges.

Many college administrators also changed their perspectives on team teaching over time. It is a

cost-intensive method, since it requires the time of two instructors for one classroom, which initially

made many administrators uncertain about its cost-effectiveness. Some college leaders eventually were

won over by the popularity of the model among faculty and students. Others planned to integrate the

benefits of team teaching while reducing costs by implementing team teaching for one or two

semesters, thereby giving CTE instructors a chance to learn how to incorporate basic skills content into

their courses, and then moving forward without the second instructor.

Figure 10 shows the team-teaching methods that colleges implemented across all three years. The

most common methods were the complementary-supportive method and the monitoring method. In

both approaches, the CTE instructor took more of the lead in instruction, whereas the adult education

instructor played a supportive role by circulating the classroom, providing follow-up activities on

related basic skills topics or study skills, or both. Overall, the use of one team-teaching approach over

another depended on the instructors’ success in working collaboratively. In addition, over time, some

colleges reported that delivering team-taught courses became a less time-intensive process as

instructors became more comfortable and experienced with the approach.

Box 9 summarizes considerations that colleges made when implementing team teaching.


FIGURE 10

Team Teaching Approaches

All states and all years


Notes: Colleges could select more than one method. Complementary-supportive teaching: One teacher is responsible for

teaching the content to the students. The other provides follow-up activities on related topics or on study skills. Monitoring

teacher: One teacher is responsible for instructing the entire class. The other circulates around the room, watching and

monitoring students’ understanding and behavior. Traditional team teaching: Two or more teachers share the instruction of the

content and skills in the same classroom at the same time with the same group of students. Each teacher performs a different but

equally important instructional task. Collaborative teaching: Team teachers work together to teach the material not by the usual

monologue, but by exchanging and discussing ideas and theories in front of the learners. The course uses group-learning

techniques, such as small-group work, student-led discussion, and joint test taking. Differentiated split class: A class with more

than one teacher is divided into smaller groups according to learning needs. Instructors provide their respective group with the

instruction required to meet their learning needs. Parallel instruction: The class is divided into two groups, and each teacher is

responsible for teaching the same material to her or his smaller group. This model is usually used in conjunction with other forms

of team teaching. For more detail on each method, see “I-BEST Team Teaching Models,” http://www.sbctc.edu/colleges-

staff/programs-services/i-best/team-teaching-models.aspx.

BOX 9

AO Implementation Highlights: Team-Teaching Approaches

Colleges found CTE department buy-in and cooperation to be crucial to success in team teaching.

Team teaching pairs benefitted from joint planning time when colleges built it in.

Teaching teams considered course content when choosing their approach.

Team teaching was much smoother once teaching pairs developed a working relationship and instructional approach that worked for both team members.

It was helpful when the adult education co-instructor was familiar with the occupational content.

6%

24%

45%

58%

70%

88%

Parallel instruction

Differentiated splitclass

Collaborative

Traditional

Monitoring teacher

Complementary-supportive

http://www.sbctc.edu/colleges-staff/programs-services/i-best/team-teaching-models.aspx

http://www.sbctc.edu/colleges-staff/programs-services/i-best/team-teaching-models.aspx


Comprehensive Support Services

Comprehensive support services—academic, career, and personal—provide extra assistance to AO

participants, who often struggle to balance school, work, and family commitments. JFF’s Breaking

Through initiative provided promising strategies and practices that highlighted the importance of

comprehensive support services for low-skilled adults enrolled in community colleges (JFF 2010).

Unlike the case of team teaching, the AO model did not specify the nature or intensity of services

that colleges were expected to deliver. According to survey data and information collected by JFF,

common types of support services included tutoring or other academic support, career planning, college

navigation support, job search assistance and job placement, and case management.

Overall, the support services offered were not highly differentiated for AO students. Colleges

commonly reported that AO students were eligible for the same academic support services—such as

tutoring, career counseling, financial counseling, and academic advising—as non-AO students. However,

for adult education students, access to those services was sometimes an achievement in itself, since in

many colleges adult education students do not qualify for general student services because they do not

pay student fees. College staff discussed how in many cases AO allowed adult education students

access to college campus services, such as computer labs, the library, and the career center. Even being

eligible for a student identification card was at times an encouraging and validating benefit for adult

education students to feel like “real” college students.

Throughout the evaluation period, colleges have reported through interviews and survey results

that the main difference in supports for AO students, compared with traditional college students, has

been the support of a “navigator,” “success coach,” or “transition coordinator” outside the classroom

and the assistance provided by the adult education instructor in the classroom. The role of those

support staff members varied across colleges, but generally they provided AO students assistance with

needed services, such as academic advising and help with enrollment, individualized case management,

tutoring, and connections to existing services on campus or through partner organizations.

During student focus groups and through the student survey, students noted that navigators

assisted with a comprehensive range of supports and that they found those services to be valuable. On

the survey, 68 percent of students reported that a college staff member provided them with support

and advice on college, job, financial, or personal issues while they were in the AO pathway. It was most

common for students in Illinois and Kentucky to report that type of support (83 percent and 71 percent,

respectively) and somewhat less common in Kansas and Louisiana (52 percent and 62 percent,

respectively). It was also more common for students in Illinois and Kentucky to report that they had a


regular time to meet with a staff member rather than communicating only when an issue came up

relative to students in Kansas and Louisiana, possibly indicating that students received more consistent

support in Illinois and Kentucky. Of those students who received support in all states, over 90 percent

were satisfied or very satisfied with the support and advice they received on those issues.

During the course of AO implementation, college leadership and staff acknowledged difficulties in

securing resources to provide differentiated support services targeted toward AO students. One major

challenge identified was the limited resources available to fund navigator positions, which have been

crucial in supporting AO students. College staff expressed concern about AO coordinators or adult

education instructors having to take on navigator-like responsibilities in addition to their other roles.

That pattern raised concerns about staff becoming overextended and students potentially not getting

the level of support needed.

The limitations on internal resources provided colleges with the incentive to develop and

strengthen ties with local CBOs, the workforce system, and other partner organizations. (The next

section contains more details about the role of partner organizations in providing support services.)

Some college staff also noted that combining funds from multiple grants within the same pathway

occupation helped provide students with comprehensive supports. For instance, some colleges funded

navigators through TAACCCT grants or provided tuition and child care assistance through Health

Profession Opportunity Grants. Some of those other resources also allowed colleges to help students

buy books, uniforms, and other necessities.

Box 10 summarizes colleges’ experiences in supporting students inside and outside the classroom.

BOX 10

AO Implementation Highlights: Comprehensive Supports for Students

Adult education instructors in team-taught classrooms often supported students in ways that extended beyond academic reinforcement.

Navigators played an important role in AO implementation, but many colleges were unable to institutionalize the position because of scarce resources.

Community partners were often helpful in connecting students to services.

Colleges braided different funding sources to finance student support services.

Dual enrollment in adult education classes and college courses allowed adult education students to access college services they could not access otherwise, such as the library and computer labs.


Partnership Development

The ability of AO to improve the educational and employment outcomes for students with low basic

skills relied on colleges’ ability to develop and leverage both internal and external partnerships. Internal

partnerships—meaning collaboration with other offices and departments inside the college—helped

promote agreement and support to allow adult education students to enroll in college courses, increase

the resources available to support completion of the pathway program, and facilitate students’

transition to employment. External partnerships—meaning collaboration with entities and

organizations outside the college—increased recruitment resources and helped ensure that students

had the academic and personal supports they needed to successfully complete an AO pathway. Local

CBOs were the most engaged with recruitment and providing supplemental support services. Local

workforce agencies provided referrals and tuition support and facilitated students’ successful

connection to careers. Connections to employer partners provided opportunities for work-based

learning and student employment; it was often easier for CTE programs to develop meaningful

employer connections than adult education offices. Most colleges had a dedicated part- or full-time AO

coordinator who convened key stakeholders and worked to move the program forward.

INTERNAL PARTNERSHIPS AND INSTITUTIONAL BUY-IN

Throughout the implementation period, college staff reported that internal partnerships were crucial

for the AO initiative’s success. In developing those partnerships, colleges noted that engaging

“champions” within the college improved the awareness of students’ basic skills needs and promoted

access of adult education students to college resources. Among those champions were the CTE faculty

and staff and the staff in college admissions, financial aid, and student support offices.

College staff noted that internal partnerships rarely cohered immediately; productive partnerships

took time to develop. Several colleges reported that working closely with CTE departments was crucial

to raising the general awareness of the needs of adult education students. In colleges where the adult

education services were provided inside the college, AO staff consistently reported that the initiative

strengthened ties between CTE departments and adult education. In some cases, the CTE departments

and college leadership began to see AO students as a new pipeline of general college students who

could boost enrollment numbers.

College staff reported that having a broad range of internal partnerships in place beyond CTE

departments was integral for both sustaining and scaling AO programming. Through working with the

admissions departments, academic advising, and student services, AO staff members were in a better

position to provide the comprehensive range of services needed to support student success. For


instance, working with admissions was helpful in recruitment; admissions staff helped identify and refer

students who could benefit from the program. AO staff also often mentioned the financial aid office as

an important partner. Helping AO students finance tuition was challenging, especially for adult

education students without a high school credential, so having allies in financial aid who were

knowledgeable about the program and AO student needs was important. Additionally, partnerships

with student services departments helped AO navigators connect students to campus resources, such

as child care and health services.

Finally, buy-in for the approach by college leadership, including the president or chancellor, was

particularly valuable where achieved. That type of investment better positioned the college to think

about how to align AO principles with the colleges’ overall goals and objectives and aided the college in

considering how to scale and sustain key aspects of the AO model beyond the termination of grant

funding.

Box 11 summarizes key partnerships within the colleges that supported AO.

BOX 11

AO Implementation Highlights: Internal College Partners

Strong partnerships between CTE and adult education departments were a key ingredient for implementation.

Raising awareness and building broad support for AO across different college departments such as Financial Aid, Student Services, and Admissions was helpful as colleges supported students and planned to scale and sustain AO.

College leadership support, both at the executive and academic levels, was crucial at colleges that sought to make meaningful changes in institutional policy and practice.

EXTERNAL PARTNERSHIPS

The AO model emphasized the importance of external partnerships, particularly with workforce

agencies—such as WIBs—and employers to help connect students to careers in the local labor market.

Throughout AO implementation, partnerships have remained a key component of the program. As

figure 11 shows, it was most common for colleges to have partnerships with workforce organizations

(WIBs and One-Stop Centers), CBOs, and employers.


FIGURE 11

Types of AO Partner Organizations

Percentage of colleges indicating each type of partner at any point in three-year grant period


Note: n = 54 colleges.

Figure 12 displays the range of ways in which external partners engaged with the AO program.

College staff reported that they used external partnerships to various ends, including program

recruitment, the provision of support services and referrals, and the provision of tuition for AO

students. For instance, college staff indicated that CBOs were often helpful with recruitment efforts

and with providing referrals for support services. In some cases, particularly in Kansas and Louisiana,

CBOs also provided adult education services and were therefore integral partners in the AO effort.

The AO model required colleges to forge partnerships with their local workforce investment board

and employers. Ninety-four percent of AO colleges had a relationship with their local workforce

organization. AO college staff pointed out that partnerships with the local workforce system were

particularly helpful in connecting students without a high school credential to tuition funds and in

providing students with career services like job fairs and résumé workshops.

2%

2%

17%

22%

37%

41%

78%

80%

94%

No partner organizations

Independent consultant

University or other four-year institution

Faith-based organization

Other community college

Industry association

Employer

Community-based organization

Workforce investment system organization


FIGURE 12

Activities of All External Partners in Support of AO

Percentage of colleges indicating each activity at any point in three-year grant period



Forging new partnerships or strengthening existing partnerships with employers was a priority for

many AO colleges but was not always easy to implement. Of the colleges involved in AO for all three

years, the number with employer partners increased from 55 percent in the first year to 70 percent in

the third year. Additionally, 82 percent of the original AO colleges indicated that they had an employer

partner in at least one year. Figure 13 shows the various ways in which employers collaborated with AO

programs. Those data show that employers did more than place students in jobs; they also engaged in a

range of activities, such as assisting with program design, providing internships and other work-based

learning opportunities, and doing mock interviews with students. However, the portion of colleges with

an employer who engaged in each activity is not particularly high, which again indicates that although

colleges made progress in engaging employers, they still had work to do in deepening those

partnerships.

36%

36%

47%

47%

54%

57%

58%

64%

66%

66%

71%

82%

86%

Hired AO participants

Provided internship or other on-the-jobexperience for students

Made job referrals

Provided training or technical assistance tocollege or AO staff

Supplemented instructional resources

Advised on pathway design

Assisted with job placement

Advised in curriculum

Assisted with fundraising/identifying financialresources

Offered labor market information/analysis

Provided career guidance

Provided support services or referrals

Helped with recruitment


FIGURE 13

Activities of Employers in Support of AO

Percentage of colleges indicating each activity at any point in three-year grant period



Based on the site visits, it became clear that the process of engaging employers was particularly

difficult for AO programs that were managed by adult education offices within the college. Staff

reported that it had not been common for adult education programs to have existing employer

connections, so the learning curve of engaging employers tended to be higher. Many adult education

offices tried to overcome that issue by partnering with their local WIB or forging stronger relationship

with college CTE programs. CTE programs have employer advisory committees to help with curriculum

development and employed faculty members with strong connections to industry, which made it easier

for AO programs with a CTE lead or with very strong ties to the CTE side of the college to engage

employers. The ability to capitalize on existing relationships of CTE programs with employers is another

reason why CTE buy-in and resource sharing are important for the success of AO and similar programs.

Box 12 summarizes how colleges engaged external partners and those partners’ roles in supporting

AO implementation.

16%

16%

27%

29%

32%

32%

36%

37%

44%

80%

Gave resources to support the AO program

Provided employees as instructors in the program

Provided ongoing guidance and input to the AOprogram

Guaranteed interviews or placements for pathwayor credential completers

Assisted with pathway development orcurriculum design

Helped promote AO to own workers or others

Hired AO participants

Provided formal work-based learningopportunities to AO students

Interacted with students

Engaged in any activities with the college


BOX 12

AO Implementation Highlights: External Partners

External partners were particularly helpful with program recruitment, support services and referrals, and student tuition.

When available, relationships with employers were crucial for program quality and to support student transition to the labor market.

Some AO programs leveraged existing connections between CTE programs and employers to engage employers with students and with program development.

Workforce partners also sometimes helped connect colleges with employers.

Culture Shift and Changes in Attitudes toward Adult

Education Students

Throughout the implementation period, colleges and states made progress in changing attitudes toward

adult education students and in improving overall understanding of the comprehensive needs of

students with low basic skills. The AO model strongly promoted those changes.

Aided by their more comprehensive understanding of the needs of adults with low basic skills, state

teams developed strategies to meet the needs of these students, particularly those in adult education,

more effectively. For instance, they modified assessment practices—allowing alternative tests like the

Test of Adult Basic Education and Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment Systems for college

entry—and created new funding models to support the transition of students without secondary

credentials into CTE programming. Moreover, all of the state teams aligned the AO initiative with other

state efforts to connect low-skilled adults to education and workforce services, recognizing that this

segment of the population had been largely underserved by these systems.

Over time, colleges developed strategies for enrolling and serving low-skilled students and

successfully promoted positive attitudes toward these students on campuses. Through the

development of internal partnerships between the college AO staff and CTE or college administrative

staff, new champions for adult education and low-skilled students emerged in the AO colleges. Those

relationships motivated change in college policies to help students, such as waiving course prerequisites

for AO students. Students enrolled in AO were also able to access an array of academic support services

at the college, including tutoring, advising, and help with financial aid forms. Positive experiences with


AO implementation in the original AO colleges helped state teams promote the model and approach

among other colleges and stakeholders.

Equally importantly, AO students reported changes in their attitudes because of the program.

During focus groups and in comments on the survey, many students noted that had it not been for the

AO program, college courses and credentials might have not been a viable option for them. Students

also indicated through the survey and focus groups that they were generally satisfied with the

individualized support that they received through their AO program. If anything, students expressed

that they would have liked more team teaching and tutoring. Over half of the students who responded

to the second student survey (64 percent) indicated that AO provided them with technical skills. Over

half of the students in each survey indicated that the program prepared them “very well” for

employment and for further education. Many indicated that they would have been in a worse financial

situation or obtained less education if not for AO.27

C O N C L U S I O N S : C O N S I D E R A T I O N S F O R S U S T A I N A B I L I T Y A N D S C A L E 4 7

Conclusions: Considerations for

Sustainability and Scale At its core, the AO initiative aimed to transform adult education and postsecondary

systems for low-skilled adults. This meant creating more pathways to allow access to

postsecondary credentials that are valuable in the local labor market. AO builds on key

elements of Washington State’s I-BEST model, which initially challenged traditional

approaches of delivering adult education and CTE separately and sequentially. States

and colleges have adapted key lessons learned from previous initiatives—such as

Breaking Through and Shifting Gears—to AO. AO built upon these experiences to

further strengthen the systems and structures that serve adults with low basic skills.

During the first three years of implementation in Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, and Louisiana, AO grew

to include 54 colleges that enrolled 8,287 students. Participating states originally committed to

implementing the program at eight colleges, and all states surpassed that goal. Kentucky and Louisiana

implemented integrated pathways statewide (though Louisiana had AO-specific programming at 9 of 13

colleges), Kansas implemented AO at 14 colleges (over 50 percent), and Illinois implemented AO at 19

colleges (40 percent). States also achieved a modest level of scale within AO-participating colleges, with

an increase in the number of pathways offered in the original colleges and a larger increase when

considering new colleges. Throughout the length of the initiative, those colleges adjusted pathways,

eliminated pathways, and added new ones. But in almost all cases, they remained committed to figuring

out how best to develop and implement integrated pathways and to support the students going through

them. According to the latest college survey, 82 percent of AO colleges active in 2014 planned to

continue some aspect of the work they started with AO, whereas the remainder did not know whether

they would continue after the end of the grant; none said they would definitely not continue.

In the final year of the three-year grant period, states and colleges focused extensively on

sustainability planning and were able to continue those planning activities into a fourth year through a

one-year grant extension from JFF. That process has consisted of assessing which aspects of the AO

model would be most effective in moving the low-skilled adult population forward in their contexts and

which elements they could modify or drop. All AO states have reported that they are committed to

sustaining integrated instruction in one form or another, though individual colleges may or may not

continue the practice. The strong level of commitment to effect policy change and adapt systems is


indicative of changes in priorities and attitudes throughout the four states. State administrators have

emphasized, however, that the approach is costly and, in a time of budget constraints, they must think

critically about how to both align and repurpose funding. For instance, Louisiana has considered

keeping down costs by offering more not-for-credit pathways.

Previous chapters of this report described how both states and colleges have made changes to

policies, practices, and systems to support the work of AO. The following section lays out important

considerations and lessons as those states and colleges continue to plan for scale and sustainability.

State Policy Context Is Key in Setting Direction and

Supporting Systemic Changes

Each state came into the initiative with its own distinct policy context, which affected how the states

could gain broader support for AO. For instance, Kansas aligned AO with other workforce development

priorities when the state TANF program and legislature were seeking promising practices in this area.

This helped motivate additional funding to support AO beyond the grant period.

Illinois—although committed to providing low-skilled adults with access to postsecondary

education—faced more challenging policy context and funding issues. Though ICCB was able to

leverage successes of Shifting Gears to integrate adult education metrics into state performance-based

funding models for community colleges in the first year, the new performance incentives have yet to be

fully funded. By thinking creatively, ICCB partially addressed that challenge by repurposing Perkins

funds for AO.

Kentucky leveraged its three-agency AO state team structure to set forth various policy changes

that supported the goals of the AO initiative, such as allowing colleges to use the Test of Adult Basic

Education, an assessment for incoming students, and aligning adult education curricula with federal

Common Core Standards.

Finally, in Louisiana, AO came at a time when key agencies at the state level were involved in efforts

to address the state’s low educational attainment rates and to align that work with economic

development and growth. That work included restructuring the community and technical college

system and integrating adult education under LCTCS. Strategically, AO aligned with those efforts,

making it easier for LCTCS to identify additional funding for AO through the state legislature and

workforce system.


State-Level Partnerships Are Important for Resource

Alignment and Sustainability

State-level partnerships with the workforce system and other systems that influence how low-skilled

individuals access training and labor-market opportunities have been critical. Kentucky was intentional

about forming important partnerships at the start of the initiative. From the outset, KCTCS partnered

with the Division of Adult Education and the Kentucky Education and Workforce Development

Cabinet. The three organizations were all official members of the AO state executive team, which was

charged with providing AO colleges with strategic direction around building integrated pathways.

Although the agencies that formed the executive team had differing priorities, the process of coming

together and having to work through sometimes differing agendas set the stage for continued

collaboration on AO and on other statewide initiatives. The dedication of a full-time state coordinator

at KCTCS organized much of the effort and facilitated this process of collaboration.

Additionally, state teams found that other statewide systems and agencies had a stake in the

success of low-skill adults. Those other agencies have helped provide additional resources to support

operational costs and student tuition. For instance, in Kansas, a partnership between KBOR and KDCF

allowed AO colleges to tap into TANF funds to pay for tuition for TANF-eligible AO students. LCTCS’s

close relationship with the Louisiana Workforce Commission made it easier for LCTCS to leverage the

Workforce Investment Act Rapid Response Fund and incentive funds for AO. The Louisiana Workforce

Commission also provided data to support AO evaluation.

Overall, statewide partnerships have shifted and evolved according to each team’s priorities and

each state’s particular context. However, those partnership efforts have built a foundation that will be

important to continue as states and colleges refine integrated career pathway approaches.

Strategic Alignment between Adult Education and CTE

Programs Is Central to Implementing Integrated Career

Pathways

Integrated career pathways challenge the traditional way in which program staff and faculty in adult

education and CTE systems work with students. Colleges that adapted to integrated instruction more

quickly were those that developed strong relationships between adult education and CTE early on,

often facilitated by college leadership. To achieve meaningful collaboration, it was necessary to account


for the inherent differences in goals and approach between the two systems. In general, colleges where

adult education led the AO effort had a harder time engaging their CTE counterparts in this work; those

where the CTE side led or had a natural investment in the AO effort (such as an aligned TAACCCT

grant) experienced smoother implementation. CTE staff were also more involved and invested when

AO was positioned as a workforce development initiative. AO staff at colleges reported that

involvement of college leadership at the chancellor, president, or dean level in setting expectations and

providing guidance made it easier to develop and refine integrated career pathways.

States also played an important role in guiding and supporting collaboration between local CTE and

adult education programs. For instance, ICCB sent a clear message on the importance of CTE and adult

education program alignment when the statewide director for postsecondary CTE joined the ICCB

state implementation team. The Kansas state team recognized that the adult education programs in the

state might face a disincentive to cooperate with CTE programs because of the nature of performance

funding. In response, KBOR changed the funding formula so that adult education programs would not

lose resources if their students participated in AO. In Kentucky, local adult education teams often

struggled to balance the goals of improving their services and increasing GED attainment rates with the

goals of AO, which focused more on credential attainment and job placement. To address that issue, the

Kentucky AO state team built into its future AO plans more time and support for students who enter

the program without a high school credential to help them earn their GED while working toward college

credentials. Louisiana facilitated collaboration between adult education and CTE by encouraging

colleges to merge AO and TAACCCT implementation teams and by bringing all career pathway efforts

under the umbrella of Train to Attain. An intentional level of planning and support gives adult education

providers the bandwidth to be more open to designing instruction that focuses on college and career

readiness.

The AO Model Is Resource-Intensive but Is Seen as a

Worthwhile Investment

The AO model emphasizes the need for thoughtful work on curricular alignment, culture shift, and

policy change; team-teaching approaches; and intensive support services. Those activities require

substantial human capital investments, which can be costly; over 90 percent of the colleges’ costs for

AO were for personnel. On the basis of qualitative data collection, state leadership also put large

amounts of time and investment into supporting and promoting AO and working to alleviate barriers for

low-skilled students.


However, it appears that many states and colleges found those investments to be worthwhile.

Legislative bodies in Kansas and Louisiana appropriated funds to support AO, based partially on early

indicators of program success. Kansas state leadership reports that additional colleges have adopted

the AO model and current colleges will continue beyond the grant period. Illinois and Kentucky scaled

up AO to all community and technical colleges. In Kentucky, all three state agencies have made a

commitment to continue AO beyond the end of the grant period. Across all four states, 82 percent of

colleges identified specific aspects of the model they would carry on after the grant period.

On the student survey, students expressed that the aspect of the intervention that was arguably

most costly—the team-teaching approach—was the most beneficial to them and that they wanted more

of it (68 percent of the colleges that indicated they would continue aspects of AO planned to continue

team teaching). The forthcoming impact evaluation and cost–benefit analysis will provide more

information about the payoff of AO. In the meantime, it appears that many AO leaders, staff, and

students ended the grant period feeling that the intervention had positive effects on low-skilled

students and was worth the costs.

Evaluation Products

This report has summarized implementation of AO over the three-year grant period. The evaluation

team previously produced annual reports summarizing the first and second years of implementation,

respectively (Anderson et al. 2014; 2015). The team also reported on student experiences from the first

student survey (Spaulding and Martin-Caughey 2015).

Future evaluation products will include a quasi-experimental analysis of AO’s impact on student

education and employment outcomes and a cost–benefit analysis that shows net benefits accrued to

states, colleges, and students. A final brief will give a high-level summary of findings across all reports.

A P P E N D I X A 5 2

Appendix A. Required Elements of

AO and Theory of Change

Nonnegotiable Elements of the AO Grant

1. Explicit articulation of two or more educational pathways, linked to career pathways, that begin

with adult basic education or English as a second language classes and continue to a college-

level certificate and beyond

2. Evidence of strong local demand for the selected pathways, including the presence on the

workforce investment board demand list for the local area or other local data demonstrating

robust demand

3. Acceleration strategies, including contextualized learning and the use of hybrid (online and

classroom-based) course designs

4. Evidence-based dual enrollment strategies, including paired courses and I-BEST and I-BEST-

like approaches

5. Comprehensive academic and social student supports (e.g., tutoring, child care, transportation,

access to public benefits, and subsidized jobs)

6. Achievement of marketable, stackable, credit-bearing certificates and degrees and college

readiness, with an explicit goal of bypassing developmental education

7. Award of some college-level professional-technical credits, which must be transcripted the

quarter or semester in which they are earned

8. Partnerships with workforce investment boards and employers

States and colleges are further expected to adhere to the nonnegotiable elements of the model

except where infeasible. Those elements specify that the states’ programs should offer career pathways

that are at least 12-credit-hours long, at least two pathways should be established in each of at least

eight colleges, and pathways should have at least 25 percent team teaching. Students eligible for AO

must fall within National Reporting System levels 4–6 (6th- to 12th-grade levels) on math, reading, or

A P P E N D I X A 5 3

writing or National Reporting System levels 5–6 in English-language skills. Enrolled students may have a

secondary school credential as long as they fall within the eligible skill ranges. States were asked to

identify policy levers and are expected to make at least 80 percent progress toward their policy goals by

the end of the grant period. The goal is that within three years of operation, each participating state will

produce at least 3,600 credentials. Credentials should be offered in industries with sufficient labor

demand so students could reasonably become employed within their areas of study.

Figure A.1 is JFF’s original theory of change for the AO initiative, originally called “ABE to

Credentials.”

I M P L E M E N T A T I O N O F A C C E L E R A T I N G O P P O R T U N I T Y 5 4

FIGURE A.1

-

Governing or coordinating higher education state agencies focused on community colleges and ABE programs, public higher education institutions, related state agencies (e.g., workforce development, labor, commerce), associated employers, and community-based providers working in concert to develop labor-market-ready adults with marketable postsecondary credentials.

Low-skill adult learners in community college-based ABE, ESL, and ASE programs

–

Evidence-based instructional and programmatic models that promote transition to and

completion of credentialing programs in high-demand fields. Pathways must include

acceleration and dual-enrollment strategies and comprehensive support, and culminate in

marketable credentials and college readiness.

The necessary changes in attitude at community colleges, and among policymakers,

employers, and ABE students themselves to view those students as valued members of the

community college population capable of earning marketable credentials and beyond, and

worthy of governmental funding.

The increased percentage of student participation in ABE to Credentials pathways within a set

of colleges in multiple states (depth), and the spread of pathway innovations to additional

colleges and additional states (breadth); the ability for the innovations to continue over time as

evidenced by viable funding mechanisms and the embeddedness of the innovations in the

culture, environment, and postsecondary systems of multiple states.

Key beneficiaries, implementing or enabling entities, supporters, and funders with a demonstrable interest in the outcomes: community/technical colleges, ABE programs, higher education agencies & design teams, state policymakers, federal agencies, CBOs, WIBs, employers, students, TA providers, philanthropic partners.

Approaches that can be taken or domains that can be acted on to change behaviors, conditions, or attitudes.

I M P L E M E N T A T I O N O F A C C E L E R A T I N G O P P O R T U N I T Y 5 5

Source: JFF (2011); reproduced here with permission.

Notes: ABE = adult basic education; ASE = adult secondary education; CBOs = community-based organizations; ESL = English as a second language; ROI = return on investment; TA

= technical assistance; WIBs = workforce investment boards.

Target faculty professional development

Engage faculty in course & pathway design, team teaching

Redesign curriculum

Create learning networks

Analyze labor market & engage employers

Employers actively engage with colleges on pathway development

2 viable I-BEST or I-BEST-like pathways per participating college

Multiple faculty members per college willing & able to deliver integrated curriculum to ABE students

Implementation reflects emerging evidence & innovation

Multiple transparent ABE-to-credential pathways aligned with labor market in at least 8 colleges/state

Pathway approaches are enduring and sustainable in at least 8 colleges/state

At least 8 colleges/state move ≥ 25% of target students to achieve marketable credentials & college

credit without Dev Ed in 4 years

Robust, sustainable learning networks drive continuous program improvement

Engage champions

Launch strategic communications

Track data on ABE students

Promote access to campus resources for students

Growing awareness of problem/solutions by colleges, employers, states

Greater ABE student access to campus resources

ABE students seen as important population/pipeline in institutions

ABE students seek college & career pathways

States, colleges invest in ABE data tracking

ABE students supported (in academics, financial aid, college/career counseling) & integrated into colleges

Students have knowledge of range of available supports

Faculty, administrators & policymakers demonstrate commitment to ABE student success

Identify multi-sector resources

Identify & advocate for removal of policy barriers in all sectors

Provide state tools for cost-benefit analysis

Some financial aid barriers removed; ≥ 2 states successfully using models for ABE students to access Pell grants

Colleges & students gain access to untapped state, federal & employer funding to support pathways

Capacity, tools & data available in states & colleges to conduct cost-benefit analysis

Colleges and states have greater capacity to track ABE student progress/outcomes & to link data to labor market

States, colleges, employers & initiative partners understand costs & ROI

3-4 viable financing models, including repurposed funding

Participation at tipping point in multiple colleges (≥ 40% of target students)

Sufficient data to inform replication

First 4 states have changed policies to support scale beyond first 8 institutions

Some federal policy barriers to financial aid & sustainable funding removed

- - -

Financially sustainable systems for integration of ABE students into marketable career pathways in college

Consistent information flow on labor market demand & supply between business & colleges

Colleges engage in continuous, data-driven program improvement

Deep penetration of model in multiple colleges in diverse states

High completion of multiple career pathway options for low-skill adults

Skills, credit accumulation make college completion viable

Improved job placement & employment results for participating students

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A P P E N D I X B 5 6

Appendix B. Characteristics of AO

Enrollees TABLE B.1

AO Total Enrollment

By state and year


All states 2,370 2,874 3,043

Illinois 419 499 523

Kansas 1,001 1,190 890

Kentucky 499 579 970

Louisiana 451 606 660

TABLE B.2A

AO Student Characteristics by State and Year

Recruitment source (percent)


All states: Y1 n=2,213 Y2 n=2,617 Y3 n=2,771

Internal – Adult Ed. 20 24 12

Internal – Dev. Ed. 6 5 6

Internal – CTE 23 29 21

Internal – Other 2 2 2

External – Adult Ed. 0 16 35

External – Other 48 23 25

Illinois: Y1 n=419 Y2 n=499 Y3 n=509

Internal – Adult Ed. 30 46 35 Internal – Dev. Ed. 6 2 1 Internal – CTE 2 5 7 Internal – Other 0 3 2 External – Adult Ed. 0 7 20 External – Other 63 36 35

Kansas: Y1 n=1,001 Y2 n=933 Y3 n=866


Kentucky: Y1 n=392 Y2 n=579 Y3 n=814



TABLE B.2A CONTINUED


Louisiana: Y1 n=401 Y2 n=606 Y3 n=582


TABLE B.2B

Gender (percent)



Male 39 53 48

Female 61 47 52

Illinois: Y1 n=419 Y2 n=489 Y3 n=523

Male 35 51 39

Female 65 49 61

Kansas: Y1 n=1,001 Y2 n=1,188 Y3 n=890

Male 40 58 45

Female 60 42 55

Kentucky: Y1 n=498 Y2 n=568 Y3 n=970

Male 42 45 52

Female 58 55 48


Male 39 50 52

Female 61 50 48

TABLE B.2C

Age (percent)



Under 17 0 0 0 17–19 15 15 17 20–22 23 22 19 23–26 19 19 20 27–35 22 23 23 36–54 19 18 18 Over 54 2 3 3

Illinois: Y1 n=419 Y2 n=496 Y3 n=505

Under 17 0 0 0 17–19 11 10 10 20–22 22 22 22 23–26 21 28 26 27–35 28 27 24 36–54 17 12 15 Over 54 1 1 2


TABLE B.2C CONTINUED


Kansas: Y1 n=999 Y2 n=1,172 Y3 n=798

Under 17 0 0 1 17–19 19 19 24 20–22 24 24 21 23–26 16 16 18 27–35 18 18 20 36–54 20 19 15 Over 54 3 3 3

Kentucky: Y1 n=344 Y2 n=563 Y3 n=932

Under 17 0 0 0 17–19 9 13 12 20–22 19 20 15 23–26 19 15 20 27–35 25 24 24 36–54 26 21 25 Over 54 1 6 2


Under 17 1 1 1 17–19 15 13 19 20–22 26 19 17 23–26 23 20 16 27–35 21 27 26 36–54 13 19 15 Over 54 1 1 5

TABLE B.2D

Race (percent)



White 52 48 50

African American 27 28 33

Hispanic/Latino 16 18 12

Asian 1 1 2

Two or more races 3 2 3

Other 1 2 1

Illinois: Y1 n=416 Y2 n=470 Y3 n=476

White 38 33 26



Asian 1 1 2


Other 0 0 1

Kansas: Y1 n=978 Y2 n=1,159 Y3 n=778

White 57 52 48



Asian 2 2 2


Other 1 4 1

Kentucky: Y1 n=339 Y2 n=564 Y3 n=870

White 82 70 84



Asian 1 1 2


Other 0 0 0


TABLE B.2D CONTINUED



White 28 28 24



Asian 0 1 1


Other 1 3 3

TABLE B.2E

Educational attainment at entry (percent)

First year Second year Third year All states: Y1 n=1,879 Y2 n=2,423 Y3 n=2,316

HS diploma 59 60 56 GED 16 23 22 Other HS 2 4 4 None 23 13 18

Illinois: Y1 n=197 Y2 n=387 Y3 n=435


Kansas: Y1 n=905 Y2 n=977 Y3 n=644


Kentucky: Y1 n=441 Y2 n=491 Y3 n=789




TABLE B.2F

Receipt of Pell grant (%)



Pell 35 39 44

No Pell 65 61 56

Illinois: Y1 n=196 Y2 n=381 Y3 n=236

Pell 24 10 17

No Pell 76 90 83

Kansas: Y1 n=964 Y2 n=837 Y3 n=541

Pell 42 44 37

No Pell 58 56 63


TABLE B.2F CONTINUED


Kentucky: Y1 n=236 Y2 n=397 Y3 n=797

Pell 69 70 69

No Pell 31 30 31


Pell 3 14 12

No Pell 97 86 88

TABLE B.2G

Full-time enrollment (percent)



Full-time 36 55 51

Not full-time 64 45 49

Illinois: Y1 n=287 Y2 n=450 Y3 n=490

Full-time 13 35 48


Kansas: Y1 n=787 Y2 n=993 Y3 n=791

Full-time 53 74 51


Kentucky: Y1 n=392 Y2 n=474 Y3 n=889

Full-time 29 75 58



Full-time 29 18 44


TABLE B.2H

Employment status (percent)



Employed 37 41 39

Not employed 63 59 61

Illinois: Y1 n=219 Y2 n=492 Y3 n=322

Employed 30 34 33



TABLE B.2H CONTINUED


Kansas: Y1 n=808 Y2 n=518 Y3 n=503

Employed 38 54 50


Kentucky: Y1 n=235 Y2 n=190 Y3 n=543

Employed 51 28 39



Employed 26 38 34



Notes: The n values for each category and year represent the number of students for whom college staff reported nonmissing

values. These are the denominators for the percentages in the table. The reader can determine the number of cases with missing

information by looking at these values compared with the total enrollment reported in table B.1. The first year began in

September 2012 in Louisiana and in January 2012 in the other states. Percentages may not sum to 100 because of rounding. CTE

= career and technical education; Dev. Ed. = developmental education; GED = General Educational Development; HS = high

school.

A P P E N D I X C 6 2

Appendix C. Achievements TABLE C.1

Student Achievements

By state and implementation year

First year Second year Third year Total

Share of enrolled students

engaged in employment

activitiesa

Credits earned

All states 12,715.5 22,798.3 21,243.0 56,756.8 – Illinois 4,221.0 4,495.0 3,302.0 12,018.0 – Kansas 4,802.5 12,347.5 8,279.0 25,429.0 – Kentucky 2,063.0 3,322.8 7,300.0 12,685.8 – Louisiana 1,629.0 2,633.0 2,362.0 6,624.0 –

Credentials earned

All states 2,589 3,659 5,035 11,283 – Illinois 581 729 991 2,301 – Kansas 1,190 1,440 2,454 5,084 – Kentucky 449 754 884 2,087 – Louisiana 369 736 706 1,811

Placed in work-based learning

All states 663 986 1,265 2,914 35% Illinois 156 151 238 545 38% Kansas 184 480 424 1,088 35% Kentucky 192 210 420 822 40% Louisiana 131 145 183 459 27%

Hired for any job

All states 456 1,173 1,477 3,106 37% Illinois 140 184 265 589 41% Kansas 46 545 506 1,097 36% Kentucky 139 107 366 612 30% Louisiana 131 337 340 808 47%

Hired for a job related to training

All states 403 972 1,128 2,503 30% Illinois 109 131 174 414 29% Kansas 62 492 379 933 30% Kentucky 122 89 291 502 25% Louisiana 110 260 284 654 38%

Sources: First, second, and third years of the college survey.

Notes: “Hired” refers to students hired during each program year. The first year began in September 2012 in Louisiana and in

January 2012 in the other states. a The numerators are the values in the “total” column. The denominators are the total enrollment values.

A P P E N D I X D 6 3

Appendix D. Resources TABLE D.1

Resources Used to Support AO

By state and year


All states (n=30)

Total $6,990,685 $6,181,929 $6,810,537

Average (mean) per college $233,023 $206,064 $227,018

Median per college $224,244 $198,680 $213,784

Illinois (n=8)

Total $2,136,576 $1,698,632 $2,371,533 Average (mean) per college $267,072 $212,329 $296,442 Median per college $271,782 $187,082 $246,455

Kansas (n=6)

Total $1,635,441 $1,450,812 $966,986 Average (mean) per college $272,574 $241,802 $161,164 Median per college $245,421 $254,783 $143,750

Kentucky (n=7)


Louisiana (n=9)


Sources: First, second, and third years of the AO college surveys.

Notes: The first year began in September 2012 in Louisiana and in January 2012 in the other states. The resources values differ

somewhat from what was reported in previous years because one college left the initiative and was therefore excluded from all

calculations. Only colleges active in all three years of the grant are included in the analysis of resource investments. Percentages

may not sum to 100 because of rounding.


TABLE D.2

Components of Resources Used for AO

By state and year, percentages


All states

Personnela 93.1 97.2 91

Nonpersonnel course expensesb 5.3 1.5 7

Nonpersonnel support servicesc 0.5 0.2 0

Advertising 0.8 0.6 1 Consultants 0.0 0.0 0 Other 0.3 0.5 1

Illinois

Personnel 85.6 94.7 89 Nonpersonnel course expenses 11.0 3.6 10 Nonpersonnel support services 1.5 0.1 0 Advertising 1.3 1.6 1 Consultants 0.0 0.0 0 Other 0.6 0.0 0

Kansas


Kentucky


Louisiana

Personnel 98.2 99.7 95 Nonpersonnel course expenses 1.2 −2.0

d 4

Nonpersonnel support services 0.0 0.0 0 Advertising 0.7 0.4 1 Consultants 0.0 0.0 0 Other 0.0 1.9 0


Notes: The first year began in September 2012 in Louisiana and in January 2012 in the other states. The resources values differ

somewhat from what was reported in previous years because one college left the initiative and was therefore excluded from all

calculations. Only colleges active in all three years of the grant are included in the analysis of resource investments. Percentages

may not sum to 100 because of rounding. a In measuring personnel resources used, the survey asked about the proportion of staff members’ time dedicated to AO in the

first year and the total value of their time for the whole year, including the value of benefits. The evaluators multiplied the total

proportion of time for each category of staff member by the annual value of the time for that category. b To measure resources directed to courses, the evaluators considered three types of classes: (a) entirely new classes added for

AO, (b) existing classes that had AO added to them (“enhanced” classes), and (c) classes that the college did not offer because of

AO but would have offered otherwise. Classes that colleges did not offer represent a saving. For each class no longer offered,

colleges were asked about the cost the last time it was offered. For each added class, colleges were asked for the total cost of the

class. For each enhanced class, they were asked about the incremental costs attributable to AO. For added and enhanced classes,

colleges were also asked about the proportion of costs that could be attributed to instructors, supplies, space, and “other.”

Because personnel costs are captured separately, the costs of the instructors were then backed out of the course costs. Space

costs and “other” costs were negligible. Supply costs were counted once (not for every semester the course was offered) because

in follow-up verification, colleges confirmed that most supply expenditures were fixed capital costs, such as purchasing class

textbooks or a piece of machinery, and therefore they would not recur across semesters.


c Support service resources here do not include the salary of the coach or navigator, which is part of personnel resources. Support

services include transportation vouchers, emergency financial assistance, and child care assistance. They do not include tuition

waivers or scholarships. d Negative course costs may have occurred if a college was able to cancel a course that would have otherwise been offered

because of AO.

TABLE D.2

Value of Resources per Credit, Credential, and Pathway

For colleges with cost data in all three AO implementation years

First year Second year Third year Change (Y3–Y1)

% Change ([Y3–Y1]/Y1)

Resources per credit

All states $610 $326 $467 −$143 −23 Illinois $506 $392 $861 +$355 +70 Kansas $453 $147 $153 −$299 −66 Kentucky $830 $632 $388 −$442 −53 Louisiana $963 $637 $953 −$11 −1

Resources per credential

All states $2,908 $1,824 $2,169 −$739 −25 Illinois $3,677 $2,353 $2,635 −$1,042 −28 Kansas $1,589 $1,117 $953 −$637 −40 Kentucky $3,881 $2,144 $2,355 −$1,526 −39 Louisiana $4,253 $2,280 $3,187 −$1,066 −25

Resources per pathway

All states $87,384 $65,765 $70,212 −$17,172 −20 Illinois $112,451 $73,854 $103,110 −$9,341 −8 Kansas $81,772 $55,800 $38,679 −$43,093 −53 Kentucky $82,470 $64,512 $53,136 −$29,334 −36 Louisiana $74,728 $69,905 $86,534 +$11,807 +16

Resources per pathway semester

All states $43,967 $30,009 $32,277 −$11,689 −27 Illinois $57,745 $32,666 $47,431 −$10,315 −18 Kansas $38,939 $23,784 $18,245 −$20,694 −53 Kentucky $43,405 $31,506 $29,808 −$13,597 −31 Louisiana $37,364 $33,555 $33,580 −$3,783 −10



N O T E S 6 6

Notes 1. Overall, 7 states and 85 colleges implemented the AO model. The evaluation focused on 54 colleges in 4 states.

2. For more detail, see Anderson et al. (2014); JFF’s Breaking through website, http://www.jff.org/initiatives/breaking-through; and the Washington State Board of Community and Technical College’s I-BEST website, https://www.sbctc.edu/colleges-staff/programs-services/i-best/.

3. Adult education programs—operated by community and technical colleges, school districts, and community-based organizations—are often oriented toward helping adults obtain a secondary school credential, such as a GED or adult high school diploma, or toward improving English language skills.

4. For more detail, see Anderson et al. (2014); JFF’s Breaking through website, http://www.jff.org/initiatives/breaking-through; and the Washington State Board of Community and Technical College’s I-BEST website, https://www.sbctc.edu/colleges-staff/programs-services/i-best/.

5. The research on I-BEST found that the “tipping point” at which students had an annual earnings advantage after five years was one year’s worth of college-credit courses and a credential. See Prince (2005).

6. This requirement was specified in the request for proposals, but some flexibility was granted to states in which adult basic education programs were at least governed by the same agency as the community college system, such as in North Carolina.

7. Also in late 2012, a consortium of nine colleges in Louisiana and Mississippi received a large Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant from the US Department of Labor. Louisiana joined AO as a result of the TAACCCT grant and an additional investment from the Kellogg Foundation. Arkansas and Georgia joined the AO learning community as affiliate states that are not part of the AO evaluation.

8. The response rates for the student surveys were relatively low for several reasons. The evaluation team asked all 46 participating colleges in the four states to disseminate the first online survey to students enrolled in AO during the spring semester of 2014. Because of privacy concerns, the Urban Institute was unable to contact students directly to administer the survey. Instead, colleges were charged with sending out the survey to their AO students, and some colleges chose not to do so. Therefore, the number of students who received the survey is lower than the total number of AO students. The survey was sent to 1,575 AO students. Of those, 444 students from 39 colleges submitted complete responses to the survey, a 28 percent response rate. The 2015 follow-up survey was sent to 290 students who had completed the first survey and had given their consent to be contacted for the follow-up survey. One hundred and ten (110) students completed the second survey, a 38 percent response rate, but representing just 7 percent of the original pool of 1,575 students who were contacted for the first survey. The Urban Institute team used multiple methods to try to increase the response rate for the second survey, including rounds of e-mails and phone calls, assistance from college staff members who were asked to contact students, and incentives in the form of $10 gift cards for respondents to complete the survey. However, many students had provided e-mail addresses and phone numbers that were invalid, and college staff members were often unable to contact students who had already left the programs. Therefore, results from the student surveys are suggestive but cannot be generalized to the entire population of AO students. The results are used judiciously in this report to avoid overgeneralization.

9. The evaluation team determined the number of AO colleges each year by asking the state AO coordinator to list the names and contact information for each active college. The Urban team sent a survey to those colleges to track their implementation progress and obtained a 100 percent response rate. These counts may differ from other counts based on alternative definitions of participation or the timing of enumeration.

10. In Kansas, one college left AO and two joined, leading to a net increase of one college.

11. After the three-year implementation period, Illinois scaled AO to 6 more colleges for a total of 25.

12. While other states experienced increases, Kansas saw a decline in enrollment in the third year because the state and colleges redirected efforts in that year to ensuring sustainability of the initiative and experienced some unexpected personnel changeover. Kansas expected enrollments to increase again after the third year, as AO became an integrated part of the state’s workforce development strategy.

http://www.jff.org/initiatives/breaking-through

http://www.jff.org/initiatives/breaking-through

N O T E S 6 7

13. In the first year, the survey did not document what portion of students who were recruited externally to the college were from adult education programs. Therefore, some portion of the 33 percent of students who came from “other sources” may have come from external adult education programs.

14. In AO programs, colleges often compressed opportunities for credential attainment within fewer credit hours than non-AO programs. That approach was not necessarily to students’ detriment. Indeed, it may have been beneficial to have more marketable credentials on their résumé after the relatively short pathway period. That benefit made the AO approach distinct from the Washington State I-BEST model, where I-BEST programs had to be identical to non-I-BEST programs in structure.

15. Colleges reported the number of AO students in each pathway who were hired for a job within the grant year; the students may have been in an AO pathway or may have already completed the AO pathway before obtaining employment.

16. The data reported here are from the college staff based on the college survey. The forthcoming impact report will contain more information about student employment and earnings from state administrative records. Administrative records may have information that is more complete about some items, like employment outcomes, for-credit course taking, and college-awarded credentials. However, administrative records may be incomplete for others, such as noncredit course taking and third-party credentials. Thus, the numbers from the survey may differ from the numbers based on the administrative data, but both are useful sources of information about AO’s achievements.

17. “Title III funds” refer to funds allocated under the authorization of Title III of the Higher Education Opportunity Act. These funds support institutional aid to help special populations, including students in remedial programs and English language learners.

18. In general, colleges found it challenging in the survey to parse the resources used for AO relative to their regular programming. No college tracked every hour spent on AO-related activities, and in some cases, it was difficult to determine which classes would have existed in the absence of AO and which would not. To obtain the most accurate data possible, the evaluation team personally followed up with every college AO coordinator to verify that the resources reported in the survey represented their best-informed estimates.

19. Because of data limitations, the evaluation will be unable to account for the costs and benefits to other organizations, such as community-based organizations, that may have helped implement AO.

20. For example, a dean whom the college would have employed anyway may have spent 20 percent of her time on AO activities. Although that does not necessarily cost the college more money, the college invested the value of that 20 percent of the dean’s time into AO when that time could have gone toward other activities, such as departmental oversight. Therefore, that dean’s time is a resource used on AO.

21. In implementing the Shifting Gears initiative, ICCB was able to standardize the concept of college bridge programs for adult education students by establishing a common statewide definition that included three components: contextualization, career development and awareness, and career transitions. Shifting Gears also helped adult education programs cultivate partnerships with the Office of the Governor, Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, and Women Employed (a nonprofit organization with extensive experience in state workforce and education policy and programs). More information about shifting Gears is available at the Joyce Foundation’s website, http://www.joycefdn.org/shifting-gears/.

22. The following is a complete list of previous initiatives in Kansas that fed into AO: Ready for College sought to improve secondary to postsecondary transition rates (US Department of Education), Kan-Go created employment and training programs for youth and adult job seekers (US Department of Labor), Career Pathways developed career pathways at community and technical colleges (US Department of Labor), the Health Profession Opportunity Grants—called the Kansas Health Profession Opportunity Project—provided training in health care fields for TANF recipients and other low-income individuals (US Department of Health and Human Services), and Keeping Kansas Competitive sought to increase the proportion of Kansans with a postsecondary credential from 41 percent to 64 percent by 2018 (state funding).

23. Under that new law, colleges were reimbursed at three payment points: (a) $170 for a student who co-enrolled between a GED program and CTE (which covers the $133 cost of the GED exam), (b) $500 for a student who earned a GED while pursuing CTE, and (c) $1,000 when a student who was co-enrolled between a GED and CTE program received a technical certificate.

N O T E S 6 8

24. See “Louisiana Pathways: Train to Attain” PowerPoint presentation, http://www.jff.org/sites/default/files/Louisiana.pptx.

25. The only formal requirement for students to qualify for AO was that their eligible National Reporting System scores ranged from 4 to 6 for ABE (grade levels 6 through 12) and 5 to 6 for English-as-a-second-language (high intermediate to advanced). In the end, the flexibility of that eligibility requirement for AO participation (as opposed to basing eligibility based on high school credential attainment) gave states the flexibility to broaden or shift the target population when a major federal policy change occurred—the loss of ability to benefit under the Pell grant program.

26. Only those who scored in the eligible range would count as “AO students” for tracking.

27. Those results are only suggestive, since the second student survey had a relatively low response rate.

http://www.jff.org/sites/default/files/Louisiana.pptx

N O T E S 6 9

References Anderson, Theresa, Lauren Eyster, Robert I. Lerman, Carol Clymer, Maureen Conway, and Marcela Montes. 2014.

The First Year of Accelerating Opportunity: Implementation Findings from the States and Colleges. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. http://www.urban.org/research/publication/first-year-accelerating-opportunity-implementation-findings-states-and-colleges.

Anderson, Theresa, Lauren Eyster, Robert I. Lerman, Carolyn O’Brien, Maureen Conway, Ranita Jain, and Marcela Montes. 2015. The Second Year of Accelerating Opportunity: Implementation Findings from the States and Colleges. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. http://www.urban.org/research/publication/second-year-accelerating-opportunity-implementation-findings-states-and-colleges.

Bailey, Thomas, Dong Wook Jeong, and Sung-Woo Cho. 2010. Student Progression through Developmental Sequences in Community Colleges. New York, NY: Community College Research Center.

Card, David. 1999. “The Causal Effect of Education on Earnings.” In Ashenfelter, Orley, and David Card. Handbook of Labor Economics. Volume 3A. New York: Elsevier.

———. 2001. Estimating the Return to Schooling: Progress on Some Persistent Econometric Problems.

Econometrica 69(5): 1127–60.

Clagett, Mary, and Ray Uhalde. 2012. The Promise of Career Pathways Systems Change. Boston: Jobs for the Future.

CLASP (Center for Law and Social Policy). 2013. A Framework for Measure Career Pathways Innovation. Washington, DC: CLASP.

Fein, David. 2012. Career Pathways as a Framework for Program Design and Evaluation. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services.

Goodman, Madeline, Robert Finnegan, Leyla Mohadjer, Tom Krentzke, and Jacquie Hogan. 2013. Literacy, Numeracy, and Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments Among U.S. Adults: Results from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies 2012: First Look (NCES 2014-008). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education.

JFF (Jobs for the Future). 2010. Breaking Through Practice Guide. Boston: JFF. http://www.jff.org/publications/breaking-through-practice-guide.

———. 2011. Request for Proposals for Evaluation of ABE to Credentials. Boston: JFF.

OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). 2013. OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills. Paris: OECD.

Prince, David. 2005. Community College Policy and Practice from a Longitudinal Student Tracking Study (The “Tipping Point” Research). Olympia: Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges.

Spaulding, Shayne, and Ananda Martin-Caughey. 2015. Accelerating Opportunity: A Portrait of Students and Their Program Experiences from the 2014 Student Survey. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. http://www.urban.org/research/publication/accelerating-opportunity-portrait-students-and-their-program-experiences-2014-student-survey.

US Department of Education. 2013. Adult Education and Family Literacy Act of 1998: Annual Report to Congress, Program Year 2010–11. Washington, DC: US Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education.

http://www.urban.org/research/publication/first-year-accelerating-opportunity-implementation-findings-states-and-colleges

http://www.urban.org/research/publication/first-year-accelerating-opportunity-implementation-findings-states-and-colleges

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R S 7 0

About the Authors Theresa Anderson is a research associate in the Income and Benefits Policy Center at the Urban

Institute, where she works primarily on completing evaluations of workforce development and

education programs. She has worked on evaluations of programs such as the Health Profession

Opportunity Grants, Accelerating Opportunity, Family-Centered Community Change, and the Alaska

Native Science and Engineering Program. She has expertise on a wide range of social assistance

programs and is skilled in mixed-methods research.

Lauren Eyster is a senior research associate in the Income and Benefits Policy Center at the Urban

Institute, where her research focuses on innovative workforce development programs and how to best

evaluate and learn from them. Most recently, Eyster has examined industry-focused job training and

career pathway initiatives implemented through the workforce investment system and at community

colleges. She studies how these programs can best provide education and training to different groups

such as laid-off workers, youths, low-income individuals, and older workers. She also researches how

systems and various stakeholders can collaborate to help these individuals find and retain jobs.

Robert I. Lerman is an Institute fellow in the Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population at the

Urban Institute as well as professor of economics at American University and a research fellow at IZA in

Bonn, Germany. A leading expert on apprenticeship, he recently established the American Institute for

Innovative Apprenticeship. His current research focus is on skills, employer training, apprenticeship

programs in the United States and abroad, and housing policies.

Maureen Conway is the vice president of the Aspen Institute and the executive director of the

Economic Opportunities Program. Conway founded EOP’s Workforce Strategies Initiative (AspenWSI)

and has headed up workforce research at the Aspen Institute since 1999. She leads a team of

researchers and consultants in a variety of initiatives to identify and advance strategies that help low-

income Americans gain ground in today’s labor market. A featured speaker at numerous national and

regional conferences, she is a nationally recognized expert in sectoral, or industry-specific, workforce

development and has been quoted in a variety of news media including the New York Times, Wall Street

Journal, National Journal and National Public Radio’s Market Place. Under her leadership, EOP’s

Workforce Strategies Initiative has investigated the outcomes of sectoral workforce development,

provided innovation seed grants to leading programs in order to illuminate promising practices and

explored key operating features of programs in specific industry sectors.

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R S 7 1

Ranita Jain is a senior evaluation manager for the Workforce Strategies Initiative. Jain currently assists

with the planning, management and implementation of a variety of WSI evaluation projects and has

expertise in developing and implementing study designs and protocols, developing logic models,

conducting data collection and analyses, and producing written reports and presentations.

Marcela Montes is a research associate for the Workforce Strategies Initiative at the Aspen Institute.

At Aspen, Montes works on range of program evaluation projects, which include: the evaluation for

Jobs for the Future’s national initiative Accelerating Opportunity; the evaluation of a DOL TAACCCT

grant for a consortium of gulf coast states; and the evaluation for the work of a New York City

Healthcare Workforce Intermediary. In this role, Ms. Montes has designed research tools, planned and

conducted site visits, led interviews, and documented findings in reports. Marcela has also been

involved in the design and facilitation of technical assistance activities; peer learning events; and other

convenings.

ST A T E M E N T O F I N D E P E N D E N C E

The Urban Institute strives to meet the highest standards of integrity and quality in its research and analyses and in

the evidence-based policy recommendations offered by its researchers and experts. We believe that operating

consistent with the values of independence, rigor, and transparency is essential to maintaining those standards. As

an organization, the Urban Institute does not take positions on issues, but it does empower and support its experts

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scholars and experts are expected to be objective and follow the evidence wherever it may lead.

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